tihvaxy  of t^he  trheological  Seminary 

PRINCETON   .   NEW  JERSEY 


PRESENTED  BY 

A.    G.    Cameron,  Ph . D . 


"89^/0 


APPLICATION 

OF 

SAMEL  D.  BRADFORD  A^D  OTHERS, 


TO    SET   OFF 


WARDS  SIX,  SEVEN  AND  EIGHT, 


CITY      OF      ROXBURY, 


SEPARATE  AGRICULTURAL  TOWN. 


Zs^  i^  im  c^  i:i:£ 


HON.  RUFUS   CHOATE, 


BEFORE  THE 


Mnt  C^jb(rttb(J  tfotntmif^c  on  ^mn$f 


BOSTON,    APRIIi    4,    1851. 


Pi^onograpi^ic  JScpott  Jid  J3r.  James  Wi.  ^tonc. 


J\% 


BOSTON: 

GEORGE    C.    RAND    &    COMPANY,    3   CORNHILL. 

1851. 


Hon.  Mr.  BASSETT,  Chairman  of  Committee. 


RuFus  Choate, 
Arthur 


ITT     a'  r  for  the  Petitioners. 

W.  Austin,    y 

David  A.  Simmons,  )  /•     .t.     t>  t 

T         T    n  rfor  the  Jxemonstrants. 

John  J.  Clark,       )•' 


SPEECH. 


I  DO  not  propose,  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  of  course,  at  this 
time  of  night,  to  attempt  to  follow  my  learned  brother  on  behalf  of  the 
city  lower  of  Roxbury,  over  the  whole  of  the  ground  which  he  has 
traversed  with  so  much  rapidity  and  with  so  much  skill;  nor  do  I 
mean,  if  I  can  possibly  help  it,  to  advert  at  all  to  any  thing  like  a  ten 
thousandeth  portion  of  that  iixelevant  and  unimportant  matter  which,  in 
the  course  of  a  somewhat  protracted  and  excited  examination  before  this 
Committee,  has  been  somewhat  necessarily,  like  chaff  among  the  wheat, 
forced  upon  your  attention.  The  merits  of  this  case  seem  to  me  to  be 
within  the  narrowest  compass.  I  am  sure  that  if  I  had  ever  so  much 
time  to  be  tedious,  I  should  better  serve  my  clients  and  the  cause  I 
advocate,  as  I  am  also  confident  that  I  shall  better  please  the  Committee, 
by  confining  myself  to  those  merits.  To  them  I  advance  without  preface, 
and  to  them  I  mean  to  adhere  to  the  best  of  my  ability  without  digres- 
sion. 

I  think,  gentlemen,  that  it  must  be  admitted  by  all  of  you,  at  least, 
by  all  the  members  of  the  Legislature,  at  least,  although  my  learned 
brother  has  been  pleased  to  take  a  somewhat  different  view  of  the  case, 
that  the  general  character  of  the  petition  which  is  presented  to  you,  the 
grounds  on  which  it  proceeds,  the  objects  it  auns  at,  and  the  source  it 
comes  from,  are  such  as  entitle  it,  at  least,  to  the  kindest  and  most 
parental  consideration  of  the  Legislature.     A  large  body  of  petitioners, 


your  fellow  citizens,  and,  in  a  certain  legal  sense,  I  may  say  your  constit- 
uents, also,  composing,  as  I  may  also  substantially  describe  them,  tlie 
unanimous  population  and  sentiment  of  a  very  large  territory,  a  com- 
munity and  territory  large  enough,  unanimous  enougb,  and  rich  enough 
in  all  moral  and  all  material  traits  and  qualifications  to  make  up  a  town 
of  the  first  class,  equal  to  every  municipal  duty  and  every  municipal 
respectability,  larger,  permit  me  to  say  in  advance,  than  two  hundred 
and  fifty  out  of  the  three  hundred  and  twenty-two  towns  that  make  up 
the  sweet  and  cheerful  surface  of  Massachusetts  to-day ;  such  a  body  of 
petitioners  and  such  an  area  as  this  are  before  you,  seeking  to-night  for 
a  larger  measure  and  a  better  form  of  self-government  than  it  is  now 
their  lot  to  enjoy.  ' 

The  petitioners  are  here,  gentlemen,  if  you  will  give  me  leave  to 
remind  you,  not  seeking  for  railroad  charters,  or  mutual  insurance 
charters,  or  for  the  loan  of  money  or  of  credit  from  the  State ;  but  I 
hope  I  shall  provoke  no  man's  smile  when  I  say,  seeking  for  a  better 
liberty  under  the  law.  They  are  here  with  no  revolutionary  pui-pose,  to 
throw  off  all  social  ties ;  but  asking  only  the  inestimable  privilege  of 
being  allowed  to  form  with  one  another  sweeter  civil  and  social  ties,  to 
the  end  that  they  may  the  better  perform  all  social  and  all  civil  duties. 
They  are  not  here  seeking  the  lion's  share,  or  any  share  of  the  pauper 
tax,  or  of  any  of  the  cemeteries  to  disturb  the  repose  of  the  dead  ;  but 
are  seeking  only  a  better  and  a  completer  government  of  themselves. 

They  are  here,  not  from  any  fear  of  any  future  tax  from  any  foreign 
or  a  native  pauper  population,  not  from  any  fear  of  any  thing ;  but  they 
are  here  under  a  present  and  practical  feeling,  gentlemen,  that  a  com- 
munity in  lower  Roxbury,  of  native  citizens,  undoubtedly  respectable  in 
its  general  constitution,  of  very  great  worth  in  its  general  character,  but 
a  community  distinct  from  themselves,  distinct  by  local  position,  distinct 
by  industrial  pursuits,  distinct  by  modes  of  municipal  life,  distinct 
somewhat  by  sympathies  alienated,  I  will  not  say  secured  —  a  strong 
feeling  that  such  a  community  should  have  a  distinct  government  from 
their  own.  I  say  that  this  community  is  this  day  their  master.  Good 
government,  or  bad  government,  as  my  learned  brother  chooses  to  repre- 
sent it,  it  is  the  government  of  another ;  and  my  clients  seek  to  escape 


from  it,  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen,  not  by  rushing  into  any  revolu- 
tionary form  of  policy,  but  by  setting  up  that  old  and  endeared  form 
which,  beginnmg  at  the  rock  beginning  on  the  cape,  transplanted  from 
the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower,  a  New  England  man  takes  with  hun  as  he 
takes  his  Bible  or  his  constitution,  whether  he  ascends  the  waters  of  the 
Mississippi  or  of  the  Columbia  —  that  ancient  form  beneath  which  alone 
the  agricultural  mind  breathes  freely  and  trains  itself  perfectly  to  the 
duties  of  citizenship  ;  I  mean  the  old  fashioned  form  of  town  government 
in  town  meeting.  These  are  the  general  features  of  the  causes  which 
bring  the  town  of  Eoxbury  here  to-day.  I  am  quite  sure,  in  advance, 
that  such  a  case  from  such  a  source,  proceeding  on  such  grounds,  and 
reaching  to  such  results,  will  be  treated  as  all  are  treated  who  come  to 
you,  parentally,  considerately  and  kindly. 

It  has  seemed  to  me,  give  me  leave  to  say,  and  I  have  felt  it  with 
gi-eat  force  during  my  learned  brother's  argument,  that  it  is  all  but  indis- 
pensable, before  we  take  one  single  step  towards  an  attempt  to  determine 
this  case,  that  we  should  begin,  if  we  can,  by  doing  what  my  learned 
friends  on  the  other  side  have  not  lifted  a  finger  to  try  to  do ;  and  that 
is,  if  possible,  to  settle  some  standard,  some  rule,  some  formula,  some 
criterion,  if  language  is  equal  to  it,  to  determine  whether  a  petitioning 
population,  seeking  to  be  a  town  by  themselves,  have  made  out  a  right 
to  be  a  town.  Wbat  shall  be  the  standard  of  determination,  Mr.  Chair- 
man ?  I  submit  to  you  and  to  your  associates  that  your  minds  struggle 
for  a  rule.     What  shall  it  be  ? 

Now  it  is  very  easy  indeed,  examples  enough  have  been  given  this 
afternoon,  for  us  to  fill  our  mouths  with  phrases,  which  seem  to  mean 
something,  and  which  do  mean  something,  but  which  do  not  throw  a 
ray  of  light  upon  this  question  which  is  so  important. 

The  city  of  Eoxbury  has  said,  in  a  document  to  which  I  shall  take 
occasion  to  refer  hereafter  more  particularly,  that  the  multiplication  of 
small  towns  is  not  to  be  encouraged.  But  that  does  not  reach  our  case. 
To  determine  that  moral  necessity  on  which  a  Legislature  may  act,  and 
in  a  given  case  whether  the  petitioners  have  brought  themselves  up  to 
our  standard,  is  our  endeavor. 

It  has  been  said  that  an  ancient  town  or  city  is  respectable  in  a  general 


sense,  and  that,  therefore,  no  change  ought  to  be  hazarded  unless  a 
strong  case  is  made  out.  This  may  be  true ;  but  it  does  not  help  to 
solve  the  problem  before  you,  because  it  may  be  true  that  so  large  an 
area  may  be  so  incommoded  and  fail  to  participate  in  all  the  prosperity 
to  which  it  might  attain  alone,  that  separation  would  be  better  for  it  and 
better  for  both,  the  ancientness  of  the  town  or  city  to  the  contrary,  not- 
withstanding. It  is  very  easy,  as  we  have  seen  this  afternoon,  to  be 
pathetic  on  the  antiquity  of  a  given  corporate  existence,  and  on  the 
importance  of  antic|uity,  which  should  induce  us  to  desire  to  keep  the 
different  portions  together.  But  we,  every  one  of  us,  see  that  after  all 
progress  is  every  thing ;  that  it  is  not  the  traceability  of  towns  or  the 
exterior  of  towns  which  is  important,  but  thegfeelings  and  sentiments  of 
the  men  and  women,  the  living  masses  who  make  them  up  ;  that  after 
all  the  eternal  law  of  utility  and  fitness  may  command  to  re-construct  and 
re-arrange  that  organization  to-day,  which  has  answered  its  purpose,  as 
my  brother  has  said,  for  220  years.  Towns,  gentlemen,  like  the  Sab- 
bath, are  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  towns  or  for  the  Sabbath. 
And,  therefore,  I  repeat  it,  that  if  the  interest  or  the  convenience  of  the 
men  who  compose  the  town  demands  the  change,  that  if  the  predomi- 
nance of  the  good  over  the  evil  is  so  great  as  to  be  important,  then  we 
change  the  organization  of  the  town  or  city  as  a  matter  of  course,  just  as 
w^e  change  every  thing  else. 

It  is  very  easy  to  say  that  the  new-born  zeal  of  a  new  comer  is  not  to 
be  indulged  when  he  asks  for  a  separation.  But  the  question  still  comes, 
what,  how  many,  who,  shall  be  considered  as  representing  the  opinion  of 
the  public  in  this  case  ;  and  whether  it  is  a  good  reason,  or  whether  it  is 
a  sound  discernment  of  public  interest,  that  has  brought  this  case  before 
you. 

We  seek  for  a  formula  then,  and  I  hope  the  Committee  will  indulge 
me  for  a  moment  in  determining  that ;  for  when  that  is  settled,  the  case 
is  argued.  We  feel  the  necessity  of  a  standard  for  the  establishment  of 
such  a  town  as  this  petition  asks.     What,  then,  shall  this  formula  be  ? 

I  have  the  honor,  with  a  good  deal  of  diffidence,  but  after  a  good  deal 
of  reflection,  and  at  last  with  a  good  deal  of  reasonable  reliance  that  it 
will  not  be  unsatisfactory  in  the  judgment  of  the  Committee,  to  state 


that  the  formula  for  such  a  standard,  or  the  citerion  under  the  policy  of 
Massachusetts,  is  substantially  this  :  When  the  area  and  its  mhabitants 
seekmg  sepai-ation  from  another  town  or  city,  and  an  incorporation  as  a 
new  one,  axe  sufl&ciently  large  and  numerous  to  constitute  of  themselves 
a  new  town  of  respectable  dimensions,  and  population  and  ability,  above 
the  average  of  the  towns  of  the  Commonwealth,  above  the  class  of  what 
would  be  called  mconsiderable  and  unimportant,  as  small  towns,  and  yet 
leave  the  parent  town  not  absorbed  by  annexation  with  which  these 
petitioners  have  nothing  to  do,  but  will  leave  it  in  a  municipal  life  of 
average  dimensions,  populousness  and  ability ;  then  if  the  public  policy 
shall  in  this  behalf  be  satisfactory,  I  mean  to  say,  not  the  making  of  two 
inconsiderable  towns,  but  of  two  large  ones,  which  shall  be  above  the 
average  ;  then,  su-,  if  the  welfare  of  petitioners  who  apply  for  the  incor- 
poration will  be  promoted  in  a  considerable  and  appreciable  degree  by  a 
separation,  so  much  promoted  that  this  will  exceed  the  inconvenience 
and  evil,  if  any,  occasioned  to  the  residue,  so  that  upon  the  whole  there 
will  be  an  increase  of  the  accommodations  and  convenience  and  probable 
prosperity  of  the  original  whole  as  a  mass,  the  separation  is  proper  to  be 
made.  I  pray  you  to  allow  me  by  this  fadmg  twilight  to  pause  for  a 
moment  upon  this  criterion. 

My  first  condition  is,  that  neither  the  new  town  nor  the  residuary  old 
one  shall  be  reduced  to  insignificance ;  but  both  shall  remain  and  both 
shall  be,  for  the  demands  of  public  policy,  above  the  average  of  corporate 
and  municipal  respectability,  if  we  are  able  to  determine  where  that 
average  shall  fall.     That  is  my  first  condition. 

I  have  stated  a  principle  very  far  less  favorable  to  incorporation  than 
the  legislative  action  of  the  Commonwealth  would  warrant  me  to  take. 
I  do  not  find,  in  looking  over  the  action  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature, 
or  the  less  agreeable  reading  of  its  special  laws,  that  they  have  ever 
made  it  a  condition  to  the  establishment  of  new  towns  that  the  area  an  d 
population  shall  be  as  much  as  I  present,  viz  :  that  there  shall  be  a  fair 
average  of  dimensions]  and  populousness.  I  find  no  such  average 
established. 

Sir,  areas  of  territory  very  far  below  this  have  again  and  again  been 
made  into  towns.     And  it  is  pleasant  to  remember  that  it  is  within  the 


8 

experience  of  many  of  us  that  they  have  run  coui'ses  of  prosperity, 
which  have  brilliantly  illustrated  the  benefit  of  the  policy  which  has 
been  followed.  You  know  that  you  have  made  towns  of  eight  hundred 
inhabitants,  of  ten  hundred  inhabitants,  of  eleven,  of  twelve,  of  thirteen 
hundred  inhabitants,  and  they  have  all  operated  well,  though  they  fall 
very  much  below  the  standard  to  which  I  would  bind  myself. 

Your  predecessors  have  established  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  func- 
tions of  a  town,  nothing  in  the  place  which  it  holds  under  our  social 
system  which  inflexibly  requires  it  to  be  of  certam  numbers  ;  and  they 
have  said  again  and  again  that  800  or  1,000  human  beings  may  consti- 
tute a  mass  of  the  community  of  convenience  or  inconvenience  fit  for 
the  Legislature  to  regard.  Still,  gentlemen,  ii^  order  not  unnecessarily 
to  bring  an  action  in  which  my  clients  have  such  deep  interest,  fau-ly 
against  any  public  policy  to  which  any  person  may  be  attached,  I  am 
disposed  to  agree  in  the  general  that  small  corporations  shall  not  be  mul- 
tiplied. I  am  willing  to  concede  that  the  general  policy  would  be 
against  it. 

Therefore,  I  have  the  honor  to  put  it  as  my  first  criterion,  that  both 
the  towns  which  are  to  result  from  the  separation  shall  be  in  the  class  we 
call  quite  respectable,  above  the  average  of  respectability  according  to 
the  standard  in  the  Commonwealth.  When  such  may  be  the  case,  when 
we  may  create  and  leave  two  towns  respectable,  populous,  able  in 
material  and  moral  elements  of  gi-eatness,  separation  may  very  properly 
take  place.     Then  I  come  to  my  next  position. 

I  submit  to  you,  then,  that  if  it  turns  out  in  point  of  proof  that  it  will 
greatly  and  appreciably  promote  the  interests  and  conditions,  and  soothe 
the  feelings,  gi-eatly  and  appreciably  lessen  the  inconveniences,  ineom- 
modities  and  municipal  life  of  the  petitioning  area  —  if  it  will  do  all 
this  in  so  great  a  degree  as  to  counterbalance  any  inconvenience  in  the 
residue,  so  that  it  shall  turn  out  to  be  for  them  better  than  before,  or  no 
worse  than  before — I  respectfully  submit  to  you  that  we  entitle  ourselves 
to  the  legislative  favor  of  the  Committee.  I  can  find  no  other  standard 
than  this. 

The  Constitution  in  so  many  terms  makes  it,  I  will  not  say  your  duty, 
but  your  privilege  to  pass  a  good  and  wholesome  law ;  such  a  law  as 


this  -will  be,  if  I  bring  my  case  up  to  the  conditions  of  my  own  stantlard 
and  criterion,  a  good  and  a  wholesome  law.  If  so,  to  no  other  part  of 
Massachusetts  would  it  do  a  particle  of  harm.  My  criterion  says,  the 
character  of  the  town  created  and  that  of  the  town  left,  are  to  be  equal 
to  every  duty  which  the  Commonwealth  requires  of  towns.  Then  if  it 
turns  out,  when  we  apply  the  criterion  to  the  evidence,  that  this  separa- 
tion benefits  the  new  Roxbury  as  a  whole,  or  if  it  benefits  that  part  of 
Roxbury  which  is  to  be  separated,  so  much,  or  appreciably,  as  to  coun- 
terbalance the  incommodity  suffered  by  the  rest :  so  that,  upon  the  whole, 
there  has  been  an  appreciable  addition  to  the  entire  mass  of  convenience, 
and  a  diminution  of  the  mass  of  inconvenience,  then,  I  do  respectfully 
pray  to  know,  why  it  is  not  a  clear  case  for  the  legislative  action  of  the 
Committee  favorable  to  the  petition. 

My  learned  brother  having  discussed  no  standard  of  his  own,  I  can  of 
course  have  no  reply  to  it.  Some  allusion  was  made,  not  very  satisfactory, 
to  the  report  of  the  city  of  Roxbury.  But  as  far  as  I  understand  it,  it 
may  be  considered  as  substantially  conforming  to  my  own  view,  and  with 
an  earnest  petition  to  be  forgiven  for  repeating  the  criterion,  I  shall  have 
argued  this  case  when  I  submit  to  you  that  we  bring  it  up  to  every  ele- 
ment which  enters  into  that  criterion. 

In  the  first  place,  I  submit  that  the  first  condition  is  satisfactory.  Old 
Roxbury  and  New  Roxbury  will  remain  of  the  class  of  respectable  muni- 
cipal corporations.  The  new  one  will  have  some  seven  thousand,  or 
seventy-five  hundred  acres,  according  as  you  draw  the  line,  and  some 
three  thousand,  or  thirty-three  hundred  inhabitants,  also,  according  as 
you  draw  the  line.  And  that  will  be  purely  agricultural.  And  what 
sort  of  a  town  is  that,  under  the  municipal  system  of  Massachusetts  ? 

You  are  aware  that  there  are  322  towns  in  all ;  and  that  of  them  all, 
250  have  less  than  3000  inhabitants  to-day.  The  new  town,  which  we 
ask  you  to  establish  to-day,  will  therefore  be  larger  than  three-fourths  or 
four-fifths  of  the  towns  which  abeady  exist,  leaving  but  one-fourth  or 
one-fifth  of  the  towns  and  cities  of  the  Commonwealth  with  a  greater 
population  than  it  will  have.  Or,  you  may  measure  it  by  another  stand- 
ard. If  you  will  turn  back  to  our  earliest  legislation  upon  this  subject, 
you  will  find  that  a  population  of  3,300  inhabitants  is  the  largest  known 


,10 

to  the  common  educational  regulations  of  the  towns ;  inasmuch  as  a  town 
above  that  population  was  formerly  obliged  to  have  a  grammar  school. 

Annexation,  gentlemen !  We  meddle  with  no  annexation.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  my  brother's  argument  was  rather  irregular,  when  he, 
before  that  important  policy  had  an  opportunity  to  be  heard  before  you, 
went  wide  of  his  own  retainer  to  speak  of  such  a  subject  as  that.  For 
my  part,  I  mean  to  leave  old  Koxbury  where  she  has  been.  There  will 
be  an  area  of  from  3300  to  3800  acres,  and  about  15000  inhabitants ; 
three  thousand  more  than  enough,  under  the  Constitution,  to  constitute  a 
city ;  leaving  it  the  largest  town  or  city,  to-day,  in  the  State,  but  just 
seven.  I  respectfully  present  it  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  my  first  condi- 
tion of  public  policy  is  amply  and  beautifully^  satisfied  by  the  facts. 

To  say  that  we  cleave  down  an  ancient  and  a  noble  whole  into  insig- 
nificance, is  to  say  what  is  not  true.  To  say  that  we  unnecessarily  mul- 
tiply corporations,  is  to  say  what  is  not  true.  A  town  is  presented  with 
a  corporate  existence ;  two  blades  of  gxass  grow  where  one  grew  before  ; 
and  I  call  that  pretty  good  farming,  gentlemen,  morally,  politically, 
rurally.  I  trust  that  the  political  conditions  of  my  standard  are  entirely 
satisfied. 

I  now  have  the  honor  to  submit  that  we  bring  ourselves  altogether  with- 
in the  other  branch  of  my  conditions,  having  satisfied  you  that  we  do  not 
destroy  a  gi-eat  corporation  to  make  two  insignificant  corporations.  I 
now  am  ready  to  advance  to  the  question  of  the  convenience  and  incon- 
venience, the  good  and  the  evil,  of  the  change  itself,  to  the  mass  now  of 
Roxbury.  There  is  no  public  policy  against  us.  If  I  can  show  you, 
looking  now  on  this  picture  and  then  on  that,  that  this  proposed  change 
is  beneficial,  you  will  commend  yourselves  by  giving  us  a  favorable 
report,  I  do  not  say  to  our  hearts  or  to  our  gratitude,  or  that  we  shall 
reward  you  with  our  votes,  (for,  alas,  we  are  no  constituents  of  yours, 
save  in  that  enlarged  sense  in  which  we  are  constituents  of  all  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Massachusetts,)  but  to  your  own  sense  of  justice,  for  con- 
ferring a  lasting  public  benefit  upon  the  community.  Passing  from 
strong  feeling,  strong  desire,  cherished  expectation,  and  fixed  purpose,  to 
the  field  of  calm  reason,  we  shall  endeavor  to  satisfy  you  that  good  can 
be  done.     If  I  cannot  show  you,  not  that  some  evil  will  not  be  done, 


11 

but  that  the  good  will  outweigh,  appreciably  and  certainly,  all  the  evil 
that  there  is  or  can  be,  then  dismiss  us  from  your  presence.  But  if  I 
shall  show  you  a  reasonable  case,  remember  that  you  do  not  hold  us  to  a 
mathematical  demonstration,  and  that  you  will  not  turn  away  from  us 
because  we  cannot  offer  you  certainty ;  but  if  we  show  you  that  a  great 
opportunity  is  afforded,  according  to  a  moral  probability,  to  do  a  real 
good,  if  you  do  it,  I  apprehend  that  you  do  yom-  duty. 

In  t-he  first  place,  what  evil  shall  wc  do  to  old  Koxbury  ?  Give  me  a 
tangible  evil  which  we  may  look  in  the  face.  In  the  first  place,  as  I 
have  had  the  honor  to  say,  you  leave  her  large,  populous,  and  respecta- 
ble in  point  of  class ;  it  leaves  her,  in  area,  larger  than  Boston  and 
South  Boston  both  together,  by  a  thousand  acres.  The  area  of  old  Kox- 
bury will  be  3,300  acres,  according  to  the  lowest  estimate.  Boston  con- 
tains 1,419  acres,  and  South  Boston  665  — less  by  1000  than  the  Rox- 
bury  that  is  left.  It  leaves  old  Roxbury  seven  times  as  large  as 
Charlestown,  that  holds  the  tomb  of  the  mai'tyrs  and  the  monument 
sacred  to  our  liberty ;  nearly  as  large  as  Cambridge  ;  and  for  inhabitants 
it  leaves  lower  Roxbury  15,000. 

Mr.  Simmons.     No. 

3Ir.  Choate.  If  3,300  inhabitants,  which  is  the  largest  number  pro- 
posed, be  taken  from  old  Roxbury,  you  leave  her  14,930  inhabitants  ; 
and  if,  as  Burke  expresses  it,  "  while  they  dispute  the  exaggeration 
ends,"  the  population  will  be  15,000  before  this  case  is  ended.  Of  the 
322  towns  in  the  Commonwealth,  seven  only  are  as  large  as  Roxbury 
will  be. 

J/r.  Simmons.     You  will  make  a  long  session  of  it. 

3Tr.  Choate.  A  long  sitting?  The  sitting  of  the  Committee  will 
terminate  to-night. 

3fr.  Simmons.     Session  ! 

Mr.  Choate.  The  session,  I  hope,  will  close  with  the  grant  of  this 
prayer.  Truly,  if  any  man  may  feel  a  just  pride  that  he  lives  and 
exerts  influence  municipally,  in  a  large  corporation  rather  than  in  a  small 
one  ;  that  he  hails  from  a  great  town  rather  than  from  a  little  town  ; 
surely,  sureli/,  every  man  in  old  Roxbury  will  be  left  in  the  indulgence 
of  that  respectable  pride.     If  there  is  anything  of  value  and  honor  in  a 


12 

corporate  power,  pertaining  to  a  large  town,  we  leave  all  that,  whatso- 
ever it  is,  for  substance  -unimpairecl,  to  lower  Roxbury.  Seven  towns 
only  in  Massachusetts  will  be  larger.  And  I  am  sure,  Mr.  Chairman, 
that  that  will  be  regarded  as  enough. 

In  the  second  place  —  I  am  still  in  pursuit  of  the  evils  that  we  do  to 
lower  Roxbury,  and  when  I  run  over  this  array  of  evil  I  hope  that  I  shall 
fall  into  no  flippant  habit  of  inconsideration,  as  my  thoughts  shall  be  at 
the  disposal  of  yourselves  and  my  clients  —  in  the  next  place,  is  there 
any  feeling  against  this  in  lower  Roxbury  so  great,  that  to  disregard,  or 
slight,  or  wound  it,  would  be  of  itself  undesirable,  would  be  of  itself  an 
evil  proper  for  you  to  estimate  ? 

Now  I  am  free  to  say  that  I  do  not  think  r^yself  that  one  deep,  unani- 
mous feeling  of  a  region  of  country  is  to  be  held  for  nothing  upon  such 
a  question  as  this.  I  mean,  by  and  by,  with  great  deference,  respect- 
fully to  submit  to  you  that  the  desire,  so  deep,  so  vehement,  so  ancient, 
in  that  region  of  the  town  which  I  have  the  honor  to  represent ;  that  feel- 
ing, so  keen,  so  genuine,  so  ancient,  so  increasing,  in  favor  of  this 
change,  affords  of  itself,  not  merely  very  high  evidence  that  the  subject 
Tfho  entertains  that  feeling  will  have  his  interest  promoted  by  the  change, 
but  I  mean  respectfully  to  submit  to  you,  notwithstanding  a  sneer,  in 
advance  of  my  learned  brother,  that  to  diffuse  that  happiness,  to  furnish 
that  contentment,  to  afford  that  satisfaction  alone,  which  will  result  from 
granting  the  prayer  of  these  petitioners,  will  come  within  the  field  of  a 
proper  legislative  policy. 

I  ask  you  whether  there  is  any  thing  like  a  deep  feeling  in  lower  Rox- 
bury, to  be  weighed  for  a  moment  with  the  feeling  in  Western  Roxbury, 
which  actuates  the  petitioners  to-day.  Now  I  respectfully  submit  that 
there  is  a  total  failure  to  show  that  there  is  any  thing  at  all  of  feeling  in 
the  five  lower  wards,  among  the  men  of  character  and  respectability, 
equal  to  that  in  West  Roxbury.  I  mean  to  submit  to  you  that  there  is 
nothing  in  evidence  in  this  case  to  warrant  the  Committee  to  believe  that 
there  is  a  particle  of  diffused,  deep,  strong,  general  feeling,  so  unjust, 
and  I  will  add  so  senseless,  as  to  lead  them  to  a  strong  opposition  to  such 
a  measure  as  this. 

Mr.  Chairman,  there  is  a  vote  of  the  City  Council  to  employ  counsel, 


13 

and  that  is  tlie  whole  of  it.  That  is  the  whole  evidence  that  the  mass  of 
the  men  of  weight,  and  character,  and  respectability,  even  in  that  part 
of  EoslDury,  entertain  a  desii-e  in  the  least  degi-ee  of  strength  to  hold  us, 
soothing  us  with  a  few  honied  words  of  compliment  —  to  hold  us  so  man- 
ifestly against  our  rights  and  against  our  will.  Is  there  any  remonstrance 
against  our  petition  ?  We  produce  to  you  420  petitioners  out  of  the 
450  voters  of  upper  Roxbury.  And  they  show  you  but  486  remon- 
strants out  of  2000  voters.  But  we  have  obtained  petitioners  from  other 
quarters  ;  so  that,  you  see,  with  less  than  500  voters,  we  bring  forward, 
with  the  foreign  aid  which  we  obtain,  in  all,  670  who  ask  for  this  divis- 
ion ;  while  they,  with  2000  voters,  produce  only  486  remonstrants 
in  all. 

Mr.  Simmons.     No  ! 

Mr.  Ctioate.  I  believe  I  have  the  numbers  right.  I  received  them 
from  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee.  Glance  at  the  witnesses.  Has  it 
occurred  to  you  that  of  the  eight  witnesses  they  have  produced,  seven 
hold  offices  in  lower  Rosbury  to-day  ;  eveiy  man  of  them,  except  3Ir. 
Copeland,  who  is  disti-essed  to  think  that  there  is  such  a  delusion  in 
the  community  in  favor  of  town  governments  ?  Of  these  seven  gentle- 
men holding  office,  five  are  this  day  in  the  receipt  of  veiy  considerable 
salaries  from  the  city  Grovernment.  I  dare  say,  and  it  costs  me  nothing 
to  say  so,  that  every  man  of  them  is  respectable.  But  when  we  con- 
sider how  much  opinions,  stiU  more  mere  feelings,  are  swayed  and  col- 
ored by  oui-  interests,  when  we  consider  how  perfectly  inevitable  it  is  that 
when  a  man  is  feed  by  an  organi2ation,  whatever  it  be,  he  thinks  that 
organization  ought  to  exist,  I  put  it  to  you  upon  your  intelligence,  that 
you  wiU  regard  this  testimony  of  salaried  men  as  utterly  worthless,  to 
prove  that  the  generous  feeling  of  Eoxbmy  is  in  favor  of  a  measure  so 
unjust  and  oppressive  as  this. 

Gentlemen,  I  might  tui-n  to  the  witnesses  who  have  testified,  and  to 
their  salaries  ;  while  running  them  over  it  would  be  easy  to  make  a  mer- 
riment of  what  is,  in  reality,  a  gi-ave  matter.  It  would  seem,  to  he  sure, 
as  if  they  had  testified  "all  for  love,  and  a  very  little  for  the  bottle." 
Methinks  I  hear  the  shout,  "Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians;"  and 
then,  in  an  undertone,  "for  hy  this  craft  we  live.'^ 


14 

Mr.  Dudley,  one  of  their  witnesses,  receives  a  salary  of  SHOO  per 
annum,  and  lie  loves  us  very  much  indeed.  Mr.  Howe,  it  seems,  how- 
ever, loves  us  only  at  the  rate  of  $175  a  year.  Three  more  of  them 
.obtain  salaries  of  various  amounts,  and  love  us  in  proportion ;  while  two 
others  carry  it  no  further  than  to  be  members  of  the  common  council.  I 
submit  to  you  that,  upon  the  question  of  the  annexation  of  Canada  to 
the  United  States,  it  would  be  just  as  proper  to  call  the  Grovernor  General 
of  that  Province,  as  he  leaves  the  Queen,  with  his  salary  of  £10,000  ster- 
ling annually,  to  give  testimony  upon  the  sentmients  of  the  inhabitants, 
concerning  the  project,  as  it  is  to  call  these  salaried  gentlemen  here  to 
testify  concerning  the  sentiments  of  the  people  of  Eoxbury  on  this 
question.  No  !  There  is  no  real  feeling  there'against  our  petition,  trust 
me  upon  it.  There  are  individuals  who  feel  strongly,  there  is  an 
organization  which  can  create  and  diiFuse  a  pretty  powerful  sentiment 
within  a  limited  circle.  Yet  there  are,  even  with  the  aid  of  that  influ- 
ence, but  486  out  of  2000  voters  who  can  be  galvanized  into  the  slight- 
est degree  of  activity  against  such  an  application  as  this. 

We  have  petitioners,  together  with  aid  from  other  places,  amounting 
in  all  to  about  sis  hundred  and  eighty-six,  to  speak  for  a  population 
of  three  thousand.  They  have  four  hundred  and  eighty,  out  of  a  popu- 
lation of  fifteen  thousand.  There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  of 
Koxbury's  opinions,  beyond  this,  to  submit  to  you ;  and  although  I  have 
no  fee  from  the  city  council  of  lower  Eoxbury,  I  am  glad  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  rescue  her  from  the  charge  of  having  such  a  senseless 
opposition  to  our  desire,  which,  if  it  could  be  accomplished,  while 
it  makes  us  rich,  instead  of  making  them  poor  indeed,  shall  leave  them 
to  gi-ow  with  our  growth,  and  share  in  our  prosperity,  and,  like  the 
United  States  and  the  mother  country,  we  can  both  bless  the  day  when 
separation  occurs.  .  We  wound,  therefore,  no  man's  feelings,  and  no 
corporate  feeling,  by  the  change  we  seek. 

I  have  now  respectfully  to  ask,  whether  or  not  there  is  a  particle  of 
well  grounded  reason  to  believe  that  we  do  that  respectable  residuum  of 
the  city  any  thing  like  a  real  evil,  on  which  you  can  properly  rely  when 
we  come,  by-and-by,  to  ask  you,  if  we  have  it  to  ask  you  at  all,  on 
what  grounds  this  prayer  was  rejected. 


15 

We  come  next  to  the  consideration  of  a  considerable  difficulty. 
My  learned  brother  stated  his  argument  clearly,  although  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  I  missed  any  thing  like  a  precise  statement  of  the  evils  of 
the  case.  I  come  now  to  ask  whether  we  leave  any  evil  at  all. 
I  do  not  know  as  we  shall  do  evil.  Animated  life  we  shall  take,  to  be 
sure,  just  as  we  do  when  we  take  ourselves  home  to-night.  "We  can 
perform  no  duty ;  we  can  pass  no  place  where  we  do  not  indirectly, 
unconsciously  perhaps,  fall  somewhat  short  of  the  whole  good  we  would 
wish  to  do,  and  fall  something  short  in  the  prevention  of  evil  we  might 
wish  to  avoid. 

My  first  suggestion,  with  which  I  am  about  to  enter  upon  the  topic  a  little 
more  in  detail,  is,  that  it  is  unconceivable  to  begin  with,  that  if  there  is 
any  evil  which  any  man  of  sense  can  come  before  you  to  present,  who 
has  not  become  enlisted  by  a  long  sharing  from  the  city  treasury,  or  a 
connection  with  the  city  government — I  say  it  is  incredible  that  the 
fathers  of  all  that  town  should  be  so  profoundly  asleep  as  we  find  them 
to-day.  In  all  their  15,000  inhabitants,  but  486  can  be  brought  up  to 
the  ceremony  of  a  remonstrance ;  and  of  all  that  15,000,  many  of  them 
men  of  character  and  of  property,  many  of  them  justly,  at  different 
times,  the  fathers  of  the  town — of  all  those,  eight  only  have  presented 
themselves  before  you,  and  seven  of  the  eight  hold  office  under  the 
government.  I  submit  that  that  must  have  a  great  deal  of  weight  in  the 
determination  of  the  question. 

But  let  us  go  to  the  evils.  I  have  found  it  infinitely  difficult,  and 
think  that  you  have  yourselves,  to  lay  fingers,  out  of  all  the  heads  my 
learned  brother  has  been  able  to  afford  us,  upon  any  thing  like  a  clear 
and  precise  list  of  the  evils  which  old  Roxbury  may  suffer.  Be  they 
what  they  will,  and  come  they  in  what  shape  they  may, — what  are  the 
evils  which  old  Roxbury  may  receive  ?  One  of  them  touches  us  in  our 
most  sacred  sensibilities.  Of  that  I  will  speak  before  I  am  done.  But 
I  am  speaking  now  of  corporate  interests.  Of  what  are  they  afraid  ? 
There  is  an  apprehension  that  the  burden  of  lower  Roxbury  will  be 
somewhat  increased  by  the  separation  of  the  upper  regions.  That,  I 
understand,  is  the  general  difficulty.  It  is  put  in  various  ways.  They 
talk   of  the  Irish  population.     But  as  I  understand  it,  at  last,  there  is 


16 

some  fear  that  the  burdens  of  lower  Eoxbury  will  be  enhanced  by  the 
separation.  If  they  should  be,  I  shall  have  the  honor,  not  to  pile  up, 
but,  to  hold  up,  the  mountain  preponderance  of  benefit,  on  the  other 
side,  to  counterbalance  it. 

But  I  intend  to  bubmit  to  you  that  it  is  mere  cant  and  declamation,  not 
in  the  hands  of  my  learned  brother,  but  in  the  hands  of  those  whom  he 
represents,  and  that  there  is  not  a  particle  of  solid  and  intelligent  reason 
to  believe  that  the  burdens  of  that  Corporation  will  be  enhanced,  in  pro- 
portion to  their  numbers,  one  seven  thousandth  part  of  a  farthing,  by 
the  separation  we  so  much  desire. 

The  taxes  may  be  divided  into  two  classes.  In  the  first  place,  there 
are  benefits  for  which  the  town  voluntarily  ^curs  taxation ;  such  are 
highways,  schools,  streets,  lights,  and  the  rest.  As  to  all  these,  the 
town  has  discretion,  and  the  town  is,  therefore,  a  volunteer.  It  is  bene- 
fitted by  its  own  taxation.  The  second  class  is  composed,  I  agree,  of 
unmitigated  burdens.  It  includes  principally  the  support  of  the  poor. 
They  are  evils  without  benefit. 

Let  us  take  these  two  classes  by  themselves.  As  to  all  that  first  class, 
in  which  the  Corporation  is  substantially  a  volunteer,  all  I  have  to  say  is 
this  :  if  it  shall  turn  out  that,  after  this  separation,  lower  Roxbury  pays 
more  than  it  pays  to-day,  then  it  proves  nothing  more  than  this — that 
we  are  now  payhig  in  upper  Roxbury  more  than  our  proportion  :  and  to 
that  extent  there  is  an  injustice  done.  And  if  to  remedy  that  is  an 
evil,  it  is,  in  the  language  of  a  great  scholar  and  poet,  to  make  evil  out 
good. 

"  Evil,  be  thou  my  good  1 " 

If  there  be  the  same  amount  of  lights,  police,  streets,  and  schools  as 
before,  and  they  ha;Ve  to  pay  more  for  them,  it  proves  that  we  ai-e  keep- 
ing their  peace,  lighting  their  streets,  paving  their  highways,  schooling 
their  scholars,  and  that  we  are  really  taxed  this  day,  for  the  benefit  of 
another. 

I  do  not  know  as  I  shall  be  able,  by  this  imperfect  light,  to  read  my 
figures  :  but  so  it  is,  that  the  city  of  Roxbury  extracted  from  upper 
Roxbury,  in  a  single  year,  some  f  5000  more  than  they  returned. 


17 

Mr.  Clark.     Where  is  the  evidence  ? 

Mr.  Choate.  The  whole  tax  is  S23,000,  and  they  expended  upon 
us  $18,000. 

Mr.  Simmons.     You  take  a  single  year. 

Mr.  Choate.  Tou  have  taken  the  best  part  of  the  afternoon,  and  of 
the  minds  of  the  Committee.  Permit  me,  now,  to  receive  at  least 
their  lingering  and  exhausted  attention.  I  stated  tliat  they  took  S5000 
from  us  in  a  single  year,  and  not  in  ten  years. 

Taxes  are  paid  for  two  things — for  benefits  or  for  mere  burdens. 
And  what  I  say  is,  that  if,  after  the  separation,  you  continue  to  have  the 
same  benefits  with  more  burdens,  it  is  because  we  are  paying  for  your 
burdens  to-day. 

But  there  is  another  class  of  burdens,  and  I  meet  them  upon  that 
class,  for  I  saw  that,  by  the  way  in  which  the  subject  was  presented, 
they  were  making  an  unjust  impression  upon  their  hearers.  I  refer  to 
the  class  from  which  the  town  derives  no  benefit,  but  which  are  only 
unmitigated  burdens,  and  that  is  the  foreign  pauper  population.  They 
are  afraid  that  they  will  have  more  Irish  paupers  to  pay  for  if  they  are 
separated  than  if  we  remain  together.  I  beg  leave  to  answer  that,  and 
I  will  withdraw  before  9  o'clock  to-night  if  I  do  not  satisfy  you,  if  I 
do  not  prove  it  even  to  the  signers  of  the  lower  Roxbury  petition,  among 
whom  I  recognize  a  worthy  gentleman  present  to-night,  and  if  I  caijnot 
satisfy  every  reasonable  person  that  our  claim,  so  far  as  regards  this 
point,  is  a  just  one,  and  that  their  objection  is  untenable. 

I  have  no  prejudices  to  encounter  in  those  I  am  addressing,  inasmuch 
as  I  am  speaking  to  the  Legislature,  who  are  interested  only  so  far  as 
the  public  good  demands. 

Now  I  have  the  honor  to  call  your  attention  to  this  subject.  I  say 
the  remonstrants  have  failed  to  prove  that  it  is  any  thing  more  than  con- 
tingency and  speculation  from  beginning  to  end,  and  that  there  is 
nothing  at  all  like  a  reasonable  ground  of  belief ;  I  think  we  ought  to 
have  this  at  least  when  our  heaiis  are  throbbing  with  a  reasonable  desire ; 
I  say  that  there  is  no  reasonable  ground  of  belief  that  the  burden  will  be 
increased  on  this  part  of  Roxbury  one  particle  more  than  it  will  on  us 

To  say  that,  taking  the  entire  mass  which  is  now  in  both  Roxburys,  the 
2 


18 

chances  are  that  more  -will  live  to  be  paupers  there  than  among  us  is  to 
assert  what  cannot  be  proved.  Who  knows  any  thing  about  it  ?  Who 
can  say  on  the  other  hand  that  of  that  great  tide  of  emigration  with 
which  the  Old  World  is  pouring  itself  upon  us,  that  in  the  five  and 
twenty  years  to  come  more  of  them  will  stop  and  remain  in  lower  Rox- 
bury  than  in  upper  ?  Who  does  not  say  that  the  person  who  makes 
such  a  statement  has  deserted  the  halls  of  legislation,  and  turned  into  a 
fortune  teller  and  a  gambler  ?  He  speculates  on  that  of  which  all  must 
be  ignorant.  Here  is  the  honest  Englishman,  the  pious  Scotchman,  the 
worthy  German,  the  hardy  Irishman,  the  gay  Frenchman  the  happiest 
of  them  all,  who  are  coming  to  this  country  by  thousands ;  and  this 
Legislature  is  to  refuse  us  a  corporation  upon  the  learned  ground  that 
my  learned  friends  are  all  but  certain,  that  is  all  who  have  salaries,  and 
offices,  and  fees,  that  more  will  light  in  their  city  than  in  our  town. 
Their  poor-house,  they  say,  is  better  than  our's ;  as  if  the  lightning  of 
God  might  not  destroy  it,  or  the  accident  of  fire  might  not  burn  it  down ; 
as  if  our's  might  not  be  built  better  than  their's  ;  as  if  foreigners  were 
coming  to  this  country  to  enter  a  good  poor-house. 

Who  will  tell  me  when  you  look  upon  the  two  territories,  when  you 
consider  that  our  gardens  are  to  be  laid  out  and  our  houses  to  be  con- 
structed, when  these  beauties  here  are  to  be  made  to  present  themselves 
all  marriageable  to  the  sun,  that  they  will  not  attract  and  pay  the 
foreigner,  a  thousand  to  one,  nay  even  over  and  above  a  thousand  to 
one,  more  than  any  attracti^ans  this  overgrown  and  noisome  city  of  lower 
Eoxbury  will  present.  I  would  not  abuse  my  clients,  as  my  friend  has 
done  his,  by  implication.  I  entreat  you  to  bear  with  me  in  considering 
whether  or  not  it  be  a  sheer  conjecture,  and  whether  there  was  any  thing 
ever  presented  in  the  womb  of  the  future  to  the  mind  of  man,  which  is 
more  of  a  fancy  than  that.  There  is  not  time  and  there  is  no  need  to 
break  this  butterfly  upon  a  wheel.  I  find  this  business  done  very  much 
to  my  hands  in  a  very  able  document  put  forth  by  the  city  of  Roxbury, 
before  my  friends  had  got  excited  in  the  progress  of  this  very  able  inves- 
tigation. 

I  have  the  honor  to  submit  to  you  that  there  is  no  reason  to  say  that 
this  foreign  population  is  to  be    more  attracted  there  than  here,  or 


19 

that  it  will  remain  there.  I  perceive  that  I  must  hurry  forward.  I 
shall  be  glad  to  pass  from  these  evils  which  are  slight,  to ,  the  great  and 
important  be"nefits  to  be  derived  from  the  separation. 

You  will  perceive  that  this  objection  of  their's  concerning  increased 
expenditure  for  paupers  is  based  upon  the  idea  that  the  Irish  are  to 
settle  below.  I  beg  to  call  your  attention  to  a  report  made  by  the  city 
government,  drawn  with  great  care  and  reported  to  each  branch  thereof, 
and  printed  by  them.  I  beg  leave  to  refer  to  page  5th  of  that  report  to 
see  if  I  am  not  more  than  sustained  in  the  position  which  I  take  upon 
the  uncertainty  and  shadowy  character  of  the  objection  which  I  am 
answering.  They  are  addressing  themselves  to  certain  supposed  reasons 
for  division. 

"  A  fourth  reason  is  found  in  the  supposition  that  if  we  were  divided, 
nearly  the  whole  support  of  the  poor  would  fall  upon  the  five  lower 
wards.  We  hold  this  to  he  a  fallacy.^'  I  thought  that  was  the  very 
difficulty.  "  That  population  out  of  which  the  largest  amount  of  pau- 
perism grows,  has  already  extended  to,  and  is  increasing  rapidly  in  the 
western  section."  I  thought  an  Irishman  could  no  more  get  up  upon 
the  plains  than  a  witch  could  cross  a  running  stream  !  That  population 
"  is  increasing  rapidly  in  the  western  section,  and  we  have  no  doubt  hut 
that  in  a  very  short  time  they  tvill  have  their  full  share  of  it."  "  We 
have  no  doubt"  of  this,  they  say.  And  "we"  are  Roxbury,  the 
fathers  of  the  town,  sitting  under  the  forms  of  the  city  government 
which  are  so  sure  to  produce  truth  and  certainty.  "  We  have  no  doubt 
but  that  in  a  very  short  time  they  will  have  their  full  share  of  it." 

That  is  the  argument  against  their  excited  counsel.  I  will  not  say 
that  I  know  how  it  will  be.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  wise  and  learned 
ignorance.  And  I  think  that  is  more  important  in  this  case  than  the 
dogmatism  of  which  you  see  some  example  has  been  set  us.  I  should 
think  that,  inasmuch  as  the  land  in  West  Roxbury  is  all  unoccupied,  it 
would  be  the  open  New  World  as  a  general  thing  to  attract  the  foreigner 
who  comes  to  a  better  liberty  and  a  happier  home.  That  is  every 
tangible  objection  they  have.  They  love  us  much.  Their  salaries  show 
that.     There  is  nothing  like  embittered  feeling  in  their  action.     They 


20 

are  afraid  their  pauper  tax  will  be  increased.     Their  own  clients  do  not 
believe  it  upon  the  testimony  of  their  printed  pamphlet. 

I  know  no  other  evil.  But  one  has  been  adverted  to  in  such  strong 
terms  to  me  as  to  excite  our  own  sympathies,  and  so  strong  that  I  cannot 
doubt  that  in  every  thing  he  said  my  brother  was  sincere.  But  in 
taking  my  leave  of  them,  permit  me  to  submit  that  the  whole  of  this 
objection  is  altogether  unfounded,  exaggerated  and  overstrained  in  its 
application  to  this  deliberation  to-night.  Mj  learned  brother  alludes  to 
the  cemetery.  His  allusion  to  that  shows  that  he  either  imperfectly  com- 
prehends or  he  unsatisfactorily  and  incompletely  reciprocates  what  I 
thought  was  the  admirable  manner  in  which  my  learned  friend  dis- 
cussed that  part  of  the  case.  It  is  not  a  matter  which  we  can  discuss. 
It  should  be  transferred  to  the  region  of  feeling.  I  would  commit  it  to 
the  matronage  of  Roxbury.  I  would  commit  it  to  the  bereaved  of  lower 
Roxbury ;  to  the  mourner,  who  is  the  only  inhabitant  of  the  cemetery  at 
last.  And  I  say  that  no  affection  of  the  heart,  no  prejudice,  no  feeling, 
nothing  so  holy  as  that  cemetery,  or  the  sentiments  connected  with  it, 
shall  be  neglected  in  order  to  accomplish  the  object  of  our  petition. 
This  cemetery  shall  be  yielded  to  them,  if  you  will  permit  me  to  say  so, 
free  of  burdens.  We  shall  only  be  too  glad  to  keep  the  thronged 
passageways  to  it  accessible.  That  place  of  the  dead,  that  resting  place 
of  quiet,  shall  be  guarded  for  them.  The  bones  of  both  the  Roxburys 
shall  repose  there  till  the  sea  gives  up  its  dead.  To  whom  of  the  dead 
or  the  living  does  it  signify  within  what  line  of  corporate  territory  it 
remains.  The  name  shall  be  of  Roxbury ;  the  jurisdiction  shall  be  in 
Roxbury ;  the  property  shall  be  in  Roxbury ;  the  grounds  shall  be 
hallowed  and  appropriated  to  Roxbury,  if  they  please  to  have  it  so, 
alone.  And  to  the  mourner  how  little  it  imports,  since  he  cannot  hold 
the  dear  departed  object  any  longer  in  his  arms,  or  bury  him  in  his 
church,  or  in  his  garden,  but  must  send  him  to  that  old  home  —  how 
little  he  regards  the  corporate  name.  Consecration,  and  purity,  and 
peace,  he  desires ;  and  he  shall  have  them,  in  the  bosom  of  a  kindred,  a 
Christian  and  a  civilized  community.  If  there  were  not  sentiments  in 
my  own  bosom  which  made  me  feel  that  my  brother  could  not  have  said 
any  thing  on  this  subject  without  feeling,  I  should  have  believed  that  he 


21 

could  not  consider  that  any  objection  to  the  gi-ant  of  our  petition.     My 
learned  brother  who  opened  did  not  present  this  as  an  objection.     He 
forgot  to  allude  to  the  whole  subject.     Do  not  let  any  thing  connected 
with  this  sacred  subject  interrupt  our  proceedings.     Wo  do  Roxbury, 
therefore,  no  harm,  in  her  pulse  or  in  her  heart.     No  harm !     On  the 
contrary,  as  I  am  about  to  take  my  leave  of  that  subject,  I  will  submit  to 
you,  that,  unless  experience  is  a  liar,  separate  us,  and  she  shall  grow  by 
our  growth,  and  strengthen  with  our  strength.     In  this  great  growth  both 
parties  shall  gain  by  the  separation.     Is  not  Charlestown  an  evidence  of 
this?     In  1840,  with  Somerville,  she  had  but  9000  inhabitants;  while 
now,  without  Somerville,  she  has  15,000  inhabitants ;  while  Somerville 
has  increased  from  1,300  to  3,100  or  3,300  inhabitants.    Separate  them, 
reduce  the  time  of  doing  business  for  the  public,  relieve  each  man  from 
mismanaging  what  he  does  not  understand,  and  confine  every  man  to  the 
administration  of  his  own  affairs,  and  I  believe  each  ought  to  be  a  gainer. 
And  will  not  lower  Roxbuiy  be  the  gainer  ?      Will  my  brother  allow  me 
to  remind  you  that  if  the  prayer  of  this  petition  should  be  granted,  and 
that  if  we  enter  into  any  thing  like  a  ten  thousandth  part  of  the  prospe- 
rity that  we  hope  for,  that  if  we  shall  behold  on  this  or  that  beautiful 
spot,  a  house  or  a  cluster  of  houses,  does  not  lower  Roxbury  know  that 
every  cask  of  lime  and  every  foot  of  timber  comes  to  her  wharves,  and 
we  take  it  from  her  hands  ?     I  present  it  to  you,  that  the  benefit  is  as 
obviously  hers,   in   the  employment  of  her  own  wharves  to  bring  the 
necessary  articles  for  the  improvement  of  our  land,  as  it  was  for  England 
a  benefit  if  she  had  originally  known  that  it  was  her  true  policy  to  give 
the  colonies  their  freedom,  and  make  them  a  market. 

I  have  done  with  the  evils,  and  I  say  that  I  find  no  evil.  Public 
policy  we  satisfy,  because  we  simply  give  to  the  State  two  daughters  for 
one,  and  "  each  faii-er  than  the  other;"  the  daughter  fairer  than  the  fair 
mother  herself — two  for  one  : 

"Matre  pulchra,  filia  pulchrior." 

Not  either  unable  to  go  alone,  but  each  of  them  up  to  the  standard, 
and  beyond  the  average  standard,  of  municipal  respectability  and  muni- 
cipal duty.     Then  we  do  no  evil. 


22 

Now,  I  entreat  your  attention  (though  there  will  be  no  time  to 
expand  the  thought)  to  the  consideration  whether,  among  the  millions 
that  shall  flow  to  us  from  the  eastern  continent,  some  one  or  two  more 
may  stay  below,  so  that  there  may  be  a  slight  increase  of  business  to 
lower  Roxbury.  Put  against  that,  the  overwhelming  series  of  good 
results,  about  which  there  can  be  no  uncertainty,  which  you  will 
assuredly  do  to  us. 

In  the  first  place,  the  grant  of  this  prayer  will  gratify  and  appease 
the  desire  of  many  years,  pervading  all  classes  in  the  upper  community, 
and  which  has  gained  strength  by  the  experience  of  every  day.  That  is 
the  first  good  that  you  will  do  ;  and  you  may  live  much  longer,  and  do 
much  more  good,  and  yet  do  nothing  that  wfll  gladden  so  many  hearts, 
and  fill  full  so  many  reasonable  hopes,  as  that  single  act.  Now,  sir,  of 
the  unanimity  and  strength  of  feeling  upon  this  subject,  in  West  Rox- 
bury, there  cannot,  of  course,  be  a  particle  of  doubt.  Of  the  450 
voters,  less  or  more,  in  the  three  upper  wards,  420  are  here  to-night. 
Of  the  120  voters,  in  ward  No.  8,  111  are  here  to-night.  There  may 
be  three  or  four,  throughout  the  whole  three  upper  wards,  who  dissent. 
They  are  very  respectable  individuals ;  but  there  are  not  enough  of  them 
to  make  a  good  corporal's  guard.  But  the  great  fact  upon  the  front  of 
this  case  is,  that  here  is  an  unprecedented  numerical  unanimity  and  an 
intensity  of  feeling,  of  which,  when  the  hearing  began,  you  could  form 
little  idea,  although  the  progress  of  the  inquiry  has  enabled  you  in  part 
to  apprehend  it.  Even  my  learned  brother  recognizes  it.  The  Com- 
mittee say,  in  the  private  report  to  which  I  have  alluded  :  —  "It  is  the 
almost  unanimous  wish  of  the  people  in  the  westerly  section,  with  or 
without  good  reason,  to  be  set  off,  and  left  to  manage  their  own  affairs  in 
their  own  way.  There  is  more  weight  in  this  than  in  all  the  other  rea- 
sons combined,  and  ive  are  very  sorry  tliat  it  exist s^ 

Glad  or  sorry,  gentlemen,  here  they  are.  Ward  8,  once  opposed  to  a 
division,  experience,  the  guide  of  life,  brings  here  to-night^  in  the  pro- 
portion of  111  out  of  120.  The  very  same  experience  has  but  con- 
firmed the  impressions  of  all  the  rest.  All  parties  are  here  to-night.  I 
see  no  Whigs,  or  Democrats,  or  Free-soilers ;  but  I  see  only  the 
inhabitants  of  West  Roxbury,  and  I  see  them  all. 


23 

Add  to  this,  that,  of  the  2000  voters  below,  only  460  or  470  remon- 
strate; that  some  200  more  petition;  that  some  700  ask  for  annexation. 
Add  to  that,  that  we  have  proved  that  one  and  another  of  their  remon- 
strants had  simply  said  that  the  time  for  separation  had  not  quite  come ; 
that  they  thought  it  would  soon  take  place,  but  that  they  thought  the 
period  for  it  had  not  yet  quite  ripened.  Bring  also  to  bear  the  state  of 
public  opinion  in  that  part  of  Roxbury  which  we  represent. 

Now  I  put  it  in  the  first  place,  gentlemen,  (although  I  remember  that 
my  learned  brother  went  out  of  his  way  to  sneer  in  advance,)  that  you 
should  satisfy  such  a  demand  as  to  gratify  the  unanimous  wishes  of  a 
population  over  such  an  area  —  wishes  not  new-born,  not  short-lived,  not 
for  any  thing  unjust  or  inexpedient,  not,  as  I  have  said,  for  the  grant  of 
a  railroad  charter,  or  the  incorporation  of  an  insurance  company,  or  for 
the  loan  of  the  credit  of  the  State ;  not  for  corruptible  things  like  silver 
and  gold ;  but  for  the  right  of  self-government.  I  respectfully  submit 
to  you,  (I  hope  I  shall  not  weary  you  by  returning  again  and  again  to  a 
sentiment  so  dear  to  myself, )  that  to  gratify  such  a  unanimous  desire  as 
this  is,  in  itself  and  of  itself  fairly  within  the  proper  aim  and  policy  of 
the  Legislature,  you  will,  sir,  allay  exasperation  and  irritation,  you  give 
men's  minds  back  again  to  business  and  to  the  offices  of  good  neighbor- 
hood ;  you  re-open  the  veins  of  good  feelmg ;  you  strengthen  government, 
and  you  attach  men  to  government,  by  showing  them  how  filial  and  how 
just  it  is  ;  every  burden  is  lightened  and  every  duty  is  sweetened  by  the 
grant  of  such  a  prayer  as  this. 

I  am  sure  you  will  hardly  suspect  me,  at  this  time  of  night,  of  a 
desire  to  declaim  ;  but  it  is  hardly  extravagant  to  say  that  this  bill  which 
you  are  asked  to  pass  will  be  received  like  another  Declaration  of 
Independence.  The  ringing  of  bells  and  the  firing  of  bonfires  will 
exhibit  the  feeling  that  exists.  This  strength  and  unanimity  of  feeling  I 
regard  as  very  high  evidence  that  the  interests  of  these  persons  will  bo 
promoted  by  this  act ;  it  is  evidence  that  there  are  evils  which  they  feel, 
and  that  the  separation  will  be  the  remedy. 

Now,  gentlemen,  that  it  was  an  extremely  intelligent  community 
represented  by  our  witnesses,  nobody  will  doubt.  Were  you  not  struck 
—  I  was,  and  proud,   too,  —  to  remark   a  body   of  persons,    of  such 


24 

apparent  sense,  and  sobriety,  and  character,  as  have  come  here  to 
represent  the  judgment  of  the  petitioning  district?  I  beheve  I  do  not 
go  out  of  the  way  to  present  any  weak  flattery  of  my  clients'  witnesses. 
I  am  sure  you  will  regard  them,  if  they  are  a  fair  specimen  of  West 
Koxbury,  as  proving  that  it  is  a  community  eminently  competent  to 
judge  of  its  own  municipal  wants,  when  such  men  as  my  brother  Austin, 
Messrs.  Curtis,  Bradford,  Williams,  Brown,  Weld,  Cass,  and  half  a 
dozen  others,  tell  you,  after  the  most  thorough  investigation  of  the  sub- 
ject, after  the  fullest  and  the  freest  interchange  of  thought,  that,  even  if 
their  taxes  were  increased,  they  would  be  paid  more  by  the  separation, 
because  the  burden  would  be  lightened  and  the  boon  would  be  sweetened 
by  the  satisfaction  of  self-government.  Whin  they  tell  you  that  no 
burden  which  the  Legislature  should  give  them  would  operate  to  induce 
them  to  refuse  the  charter.  I  do  submit  that  you  have  the  highest  evi- 
dence that  there  are  great  evils  that  this  bill  will  remedy,  and  that  they 
have  large  interests  to  be  benefitted  by  the  change.  I  do  not  wish  to  press 
this  argument  too  far  upon  the  consideration  of  the  Committee  ;  and  per- 
haps I  would  bettor  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the  facts  themselves.  But 
the  presumption  is  that  a  wide-spread  discontent  is  well  grounded.  And 
I  think  it  ought  to  serve — instead  of  entering  into  a  history  of  the  city 
government — that  it  ought  to  serve  for  proof  that  these  gentlemen  who 
have  lived  under  this  action,  who  have  summered  it  and  wintered  it, 
who  represent  a  community  that  concurs  that  they  have  felt  it  practically 
to  work  unfavorably  to  them  — I  trust  that  you  will  receive  that  as  proof 
that  they  will  derive  inestimable  benefits  from  this  proposed  separation. 

I  leave  this  with  the  consideration  that  this  unanimity  is  evidence 
itself  that  their  interests  will  be  promoted  by  the  grant  of  the  power  ; 
and  although  1  had  some  considerations  why  I  thought  it  of  great  weight 
as  mere  evidence,  I  believe  that  I  shall  better  consult  the  interests  of  my 
clients — I  know  I  shall  consult  the  feelings  of  the  Committee — if  I 
pass  at  once  to  the  consideration  of  the  other  part  of  the  case.  If  the 
Committee  will  indulge  me,  I  will  consult  a  moment  with  my  brother. 
If  we  can  have  a  recess,  for  a  few  minutes.  I  shall  be  much  gratified. 

KECESS. 


25 

Mr.  Choate  continues.  Of  course,  gentlemen,  as  I  was  just  having 
the  honor  to  say,  the  petitioners  do  not  rely  upon  the  strength  or  unani- 
mity of  their  own  wishes  in  their  behalf,  as  evidence  of  the  evils  they 
feel,  and  the  relief  they  crave.  They  undertake  to  point  those  evils  out. 
And  they  find,  to  begin  with,  the  source  of  them  all  just  where  the  citi- 
zens of  just  and  free  governments  find  the  source  of  all  social  and  political 
evil,  in  this :  that  they  are  deprived  of  the  great  gift  of  self-government 
in  its  best  form.  The  grand  and  comprehensive  remedy  they  seek,  then, 
gentlemen,  is  to  make  a  more  complete  approach,  by  your  aid,  to  self- 
government,  and  not  only  a  more  complete  self-government,  but  a  species 
of  self-government  in  which  the  will  of  the  people  shall  be  more  certainly, 
more  directly,  and  more  influentially  applied  to  the  management  of  their 
own  affairs.  That  is  the  grand  comprehensive  evil  of  which  we  com- 
plain. 

The  evil  which  we  labor  under  is  two-fold.  This  locality  (I  mean 
upper  Roxbury)  is  governed,  this  day,  not  by  itself,  but  by  lower  Rox- 
bury,  and  not  only  that,  but  by  an  agricultural  community,  an  objection- 
able form  of  government  to  a  city  government.  In  the  first  place  we  are 
governed,  this  day,  by  other  men.  I  mean  to  say,  gentlemen,  if  lower 
Roxbury  chooses  to  elect  this  man  or  that  man,  defeat  this  man  or  that 
man,  carry  this  measure  or  that  measure,  &c.,  it  can  do  it,  and  we  are 
powerless  in  their  hands.  The  numbers  are  there.  The  numbers,  too, 
are  so  concentrated,  that  if  we  should  be  back  again  at  our  homes,  the 
stroke  of  the  bell  would  rally  them  by  thousands  before  our  voters,  many 
of  them  aged  men,  could  possibly  reach  the  polls  ;  nor,  if  they  did  reach 
them,  would  it  be  of  any  avail.  Under  a  city  government,  they  have 
five  w  ards  and  five  aldermen  to  our  three  ;  they  have  fifteen  common 
councilmen  to  our  nine  ;  and  if  they  choose  they  can  elect  even  ours. 

Mr.  Simmons.     You  do  not  mean  so. 

Mr.  Choate.  It  is  the  Aldermen  to  whom  I  refer.  They  are  elected 
by  general  ticket,  and  they  may  elect  whom  they  choose,  because  they 
have  2000  voters  to  our  500.  That  region  of  upper  Roxbury  is  as 
much  governed  by  the  lower  Roxbury,  if  the  latter  chooses  to  exercise 
the  power,  as  the  Canadas  are  governed  by  the  mother  country. 

The  result  is  exactly  this  ;  that  if  there  is  any  one  act    in  the  whole 


26 

range  of  municipal  jurisdiction  wherein  the  region  below  has  a  diverse 
interest  from  the  region  above,  we  have  a  master  to  that  extent  and  have 
had  for  five  years.  We  have  had  it  for  more  ;  for  I  am  now  adverting 
not  so  much  to  a  difficulty  which  could  be  relieved  by  the  form  of  govern- 
ment, as  to  a  difficulty  in  the  nature  of  things.  I  say  again,  if  there  is 
any  one  subject  within  the  whole  range  of  municipal  jurisdiction  in  which 
their  interest  could  come  to  be  diverse  to  our  interests,  to  that  extent  we 
have  a  master  and  they  have  not. 

Tliat  is  our  case.  We  stand  alone,  of  all  Massachusetts,  in  that  pre- 
dicament to-day.  Well,  and  is  there  not  a  real  and  important  sense  in 
which  the  interests  of  one  of  these  regions  are  distinct  from  the  other,  or 
are  liable  to  be  distinct,  and  are  not  uniformly  or  certainly  kindred  in- 
terests ?  Is  it  not  true,  so  far,  that  to  place  this  upper  Roxbury  under 
lower  Roxbury  is  unjust  and  inexpedient,  and  therefore,  unless  it  be  in- 
dispensable, necessary  to  be  reformed  altogether?  Now,  gentlemen, 
bow  does  this  matter  stand  in  point  of  proof  ? 

In  the  first  place,  is  it  not  perfectly  clear  that  the  universal  feeling  in 
the  upper  region  is,  that  there  is  a  diversity  of  interest  ?  I  entreat  the 
attentioa  of  the  legal  gentlemen  of  the  Committee  to  this  piece  of  evi- 
dence. I  entreat  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  here  are  practically, 
year  in  and  year  out,  diversities  of  interest.  Is  it  not  clear  that  these 
diversities  of  interest  exist  ?  Is  not  the  feeling  which  is  shown  evidence 
of  the  fact  ?  Is  there  not  evidence  satisfactory  to  show  clearly  that 
the  policy  or  sentiments  of  this  lower  region  is  practically  different  from 
and  not  kindred  with  the  policy  or  sentiments  of  the  region  above  ?  Is 
there  any  evidence  that  we  have  differed  from  this  view  at  any  time,  or 
that  we  have  not  for  years  maintained  it  ?  You  understand  perfectly 
well  that  we  cannot  bring  testimony  before  this  Committee  to  show  you 
that  the  city  Goverpment,  on  this  occasion,  was  influenced  by  certain  in- 
terests, and  on  that  occasion  by  other  interests,  in  order  to  carry  various 
measures,  because  it  is  the  ground  of  our  complaint  that  we  are  a  hope- 
less minority.  Therefore  if  we  had  entered  into  that,  and  spoken  of 
private  wrongs,  the  number  of  witnesses  introduced  on  both  sides  would 
have  compelled  us  to  remain  here  to  the  fourth  of  July  next,  if  the 
patience  of  the   Committee  had  held  out  so  long ;  and  we  should  have 


27 

been  trying  this  with  three  witnesses  on  one  side  to  twelve  witnesses  on 
the  other,  in  consequence  of  our  disparity  of  numbers.  For  it  is  the 
very  infelicity  of  our  cause  that  we  are  in  a  minority.  We  cannot  come 
before  you  and  prove  the  minority  against  the  majority,  that  there  is  any 
hostile  feeling  at  all.  And  therefore  I  respectfully  submit  to  you  that 
the  opinions  of  the  witnesses  which  we  have  produced,  and  the  existence 
of  the  strong  feeling,  can  have  no  other  origin  than  the  fact  that  reasons 
for  it  exist.  It  tends,  also,  to  prove  another  fact,  viz  :  that  this  commu- 
nity has  come,  by  the  experience  and  teachings  of  years,  to  have  a  feel- 
ing that  there  is  between  these  two  Roxburys  an  actual  diversity  of  inter- 
est, which  they  are  able  to  appreciate,  and  under  which  they  suffer  every 
day  that  they  live,  though  they  may  not  be  able  to  bring  the  precise  case 
before  you. 

Well,  gentlemen,  is  not  the  reason  of  this  diversity  of  interest  very 
apparent  ?  Here  are  the  town  and  the  country,  Are  not  theiu  interests 
as  such,  in  such  sense,  distinct,  that  although  there  are  some  points  of 
contact,  some  strong  ties,  some  kinds  of  connection  which  God  has 
formed,  and  which  no  man  may  put  asunder,  yet  that  here  is  a  connec- 
tion that  ought  not  any  longer  to  remain  ? 

Boston  is  connected  by  ties  to  all  parts  of  the  State  ;  but  would  you 
allow  Boston  to  govern  Norfolk,  or  Salem  to  govern  Essex,  or  New  Bed- 
ford to  govern  Bristol?  Certamly  not !  So  here,  exactly,  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  what  exists  between  us  and  our  very  good  friends.  This,  gentle- 
men, is  an  agricultural  district.  It  has  agriculture  for  its  general 
employment.  Its  market  is  Boston.  Here  and  there  is  a  beautiful 
clump  of  trees,  as  there  will  often  be,  and  they  grow  a  little  on  the  side 
of  that  beautiful  pond  embosomed  in  Jamaica  Plains.  Here  and  there 
are  the  mechanic,  the  artizan,  the  blacksmith,  the  carpenter,  just  as  there 
are  in  every  farming  town  in  Massachusetts.  But  its  general  character 
is  agricultural,  dotted  here  and  there  with  a  beautiful  locality,  standing 
out  at  last  upon  a  plain  farming  land.  This  upper  Roxbury,  there  it  is ! 
And  it  is  quite  true  that,  in  point  of  fact,  the  inhabitants  of  wards  six, 
seven,  and  eight,  while  they  are  thrown  together  by  a  general  influence 
of  locality,  in  addition  to  which  some  of  them  meet  in  the  cars  every  day, 


going  to  and  coming  from  Boston  ;  but  they  never  meet  a  Roxbury 
man  once  in  a  twelvemonth. 

What  is  the  character  of  the  lower  town  ?  It  is  a  trading  and  com- 
mercial town.  There  are  the  artificial  sidewalks,  the  gas-lighted  stores, 
the  artificial  supply  of  water,  the  crowded  and  noisome  population,  the 
indestructible  character  of  the  town.     And  there  it  will  be  for  ever. 

Strengthen  the  ties  by  which  they  may  be  bound  together,  in  a  freer 
and  easier  manner.  But  I  do  submit,  that  to  tell  the  Committee  that  these 
two  are  one,  is  to  disturb  the  political  and  social  relations  of  civil  life. 
An  old  poet  has  said,  "  Grod  made  the  country  and  man  made  the 
town."    A  still  older  poet  has  said, 

t 

"  God  the  first  garden  made, 

And  the  first  city,  Cain." 

The  city  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  very  different  from  the  country. 
My  brother  may  come  with  his  honied  words,  and  tell  how  much  he  loves 
us.  But  I  ask  for  this  separation  on  the  ground  of  incompatibility  of 
interest,  and  demand  it,  also,  on  the  ground  of  incompatibility  of  temper. 
I  remember  to  have  passed  a  portion  of  my  life  in  New  Ipswich.  There 
was  Old  Ipswich.  There  was  the  town  and  there  the  numbers.  I  will 
tell  you  an  instance  of  their  government  of  us.  Among  the  objects  of 
expenditure  were  fire  engines,  hose,  hooks  and  ladders.  I  remember 
that  the  people  of  Old  Ipswich  kept  all  the  engines  in  Chebacco,  which 
was  the  old  Indian  name  of  the  town,  and  sent  down  very  religiously  the 
hooks  to  New  Ipswich,  in  order  to  pull  down  the  buildings,  to  prevent 
any  further  spread  of  fire,  every  one  of  the  houses  being  at  least  half  a 
mile  from  each  other.     [Laughter.] 

Not  only  do  the  petitioners  seek  a  separation,  but  they  seek  a  kind  of 
government  in  which  the  whole  people  will  have  a  freer  action  on  the 
administration  of  affairs.  They  want  a  town  government.  I  was  only 
too  much  surprised  by  some  of  the  arguments  of  my  learned  brother  and 
some  of  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Copeland.  So  that  I  felt  it  my  bounden 
duty,  as  a  citizen,  to  submit  very  briefly  the  gi'ounds  on  which  I  insist 
upon  it  that  the  agricultural  portion  of  Roxbtuy  has  a  clear,  a  sacred, 
and  immediate  right,  not  to  abolish  the  city  government  below,  but,  by 


29 

separation,  to  return  to  the  government  more  appropriate  to  themselves. 
Until  I  heart!  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Copeland  and  my  brother's  argument 
to-day,  I  supposed  it  was  the  opinion  of  every  body,  that  it  was  the  deep 
conviction  of  the  community,  that  town  governments,  wheresoever  they 
are  practicable,  are  preferable  to  city  governments.  City  governments 
are  indispensable,  as  war  is  indispensable,  here  and  there.  Here  and 
there,  when  a  large  mass  comes  to  be  accumulated  upon  a  given  point,  when 
the  materials  are  of  such  a  nature  that  it  reipires  more  strength  to  control 
it,  beyond  all  doubt  the  city  government  must  exist.  But  it  is  a  neces- 
sity. I  insist  upon  it  that,  according  to  the  profoundest  convictions  of 
this  Commonwealth,  town  governments,  wheresoever  they  are  practicable, 
are,  for  a  thousand  reasons,  preferable  to  city  governments. 

Till  1822,  or  till  the  convention  assembled  for  the  alteration  of  the 
State  constitution,  we  had  no  other  form  than  that  of  the  town  govern- 
ment. Till  the  j)opulation  in  each  is  12,000  we  can  now  have  no  other. 
Just  so  long  as  the  town  meetmg  will  not  be  too  large  and  uncontrollable 
by  the  moderator,  the  settled  policy  is  that,  in  town  meeting  assembled, 
the  people  shall  vote,  shall  choose  their  officers,  shall  express  their  opin- 
ions, shall  imbibe  the  first  lessons  of  practical  freedom,  and  learn  to  take 
the  important  part,  which  you  are  taking  here,  in  the  admmistration  of  pub- 
lic afiairs.  That  this  was  a  wise  policy,  wheresoever  it  was  practicable,  I 
do  maintain.  It  is  not  wise  or  practicable  in  Boston,  in  Salem,  in  Lowell, 
or  in  New  Bedford,  though  I  should  have  thought  that  the  town  govern- 
ment might  still  a  little  longer  have  been  entrusted  to  the  good  sense 
and  sobriety  of  Worcester.  But,  wheresoever  it  is  practicable,  it  is  a 
wise  policy  and  should  be  maintained.  The  right  and  power  to  deter- 
mine, in  open  daylight,  the  questions  that  arise,  by  the  people  themselves, 
is  all  important.  Mr.  Copeland  said  that  he  had  attended  town  meetings 
where  the  fifty  or  sixty  persons  present  voted  away,  for  foolish  objects, 
^20,000,  in  the  payment  of  which  they  were  not  concerned,  and  then 
refused  a  dollar  for  schools.  I  do  not  know  where  such  a  transaction 
occuiTcd;  wherever  it  was,  it  was  not  in  upper  Roxbury. 

To  determine,  in  town  meeting,  what  shall  be  done  by  the  people,  is 
one  of  the  most  inestimable  of  privileges.  I  have  not  lived  long  enough 
in  cities  to  believe  that  that  privilege  is  not  still  held  inestimable  by  the 


30 

people.  The  towns  are  enabled  to  judge  practically  of  the  economical 
expenditure  of  their  money.  If  they  determine  on  an  expenditure,  and 
determine  it  in  advance,  I  think  that  the  chances  are  ten  thousand  to  one 
that  then-  expenditures  -will  be  wiser  made  than  if  they  entrusted  the 
decision  of  them  to  boards  sitting  in  the  dark,  or,  at  least,  in  the  night- 
time. And  when  the  objects  of  the  expenditure  are  explained,  I  main- 
tain that  the  power  to  judge  in  advance,  to  jvidge  in  the  day-time,  is  bet- 
ter than  to  act  upon  a  report  without  knowing  any  thing  about  the  sub- 
ject. It  is  all  the  difference  between  possessing  substantial  influence, 
and  being  mocked  by  the  semblance  of  power  without  its  reality. 

There  are  higher  reasons  which  I  should  present,  if  I  did  not  fear  to 
trespass  on  your  time,  why  I  maintain  that  ^e  mode  of  government 
by  town  meeting  should  be  religiously  preserved  with  every  community  in 
which  it  is  practicable.  These  town  meetings  are  the  free  schools  of 
free  men ;  they  are  the  schools  where  the  people  learn  to  think  upon 
public  affairs ;  where  they  learn  the  first  lessons  of  self  government ; 
where  they  learn  for  the  first  time  to  examine  public  subjects,  to  debate 
in  the  presence  of  one  another,  and  to  exchange  opinions  on  public 
questions  of  importance.  They  carry,  therefore,  gentlemen,  public  life 
down  to  the  minutest  member  of  society ;  and  they  connect  the  minutest 
inhabitant  of  the  smallest  and  remotest  town  directly,  at  last,  with  the 
State. 

I  regard  the  town  governments  as  great  educational  agencies,  therefore, 
for  the  present  and  for  the  future  ;  I  regard  them  as  great  agencies  for 
the  retaining  of  liberty  alive,  for  teaching  its  spirit,  and  furnishing  an 
ability  to  maintain  it.  I  honor  them  for  what  they  have  done.  I  am 
reminded  in  this  connection  —  as  one  who  has  preceded  me  was  reminded 
of,  and  alluded  to  Mr.  Jefferson  ■ —  I  am  reminded  of  a  man,  one  of  our- 
selves, better  than  Jefferson.  I  refer  to  the  sentiments  of  John  Adams. 
No  one  understood  better  than  he  the  causes  of  the  revolution,  or  the 
circumstances  by  which  the  American  mind  was  influenced.  I  have 
been  looking  recently  at  a  letter  which  he  addressed,  in  1782,  to  a  cele- 
brated Frenchman,  who  was  about  doing  so  absurd  a  thing  as  to  write 
a  history  on  the  American  Eevolution,  and  was  asking  Mr.  Adams  about 
the  authorities  necessary  for  that  purpose.     In   his  reply,  written  in 


31 

English,  but  translated  into  French,  and  the  original  lost,  IVIr.  Adams 
observes,  that  there  are  four  gi-eat  institutions  in  this  country,  to  the 
workings  of  which  he  must  pay  particular  attention.  The  first  of  these 
was  the  towns,  in  town  meetings  assembled,  as  among  the  great  influences 
causing  the  American  Revolution.  He  went  on  to  describe  the  practice  of 
these  towns,  and  adds  that  the  efiect  of  that  institution  had  been  that  all 
the  inhabitants  had  acquired  from  their  youth  the  -habit  of  discussing, 
deliberating  and  determining  upon  public  affairs.  It  was  among  these 
little  primitive  and  pure  democracies  that  the  sentiments  of  the  commu- 
nity, from  the  commencement  of  the  dispute  with  England  to  the  sur- 
render at  Yorktown,  were  first  formed  and  their  resolutions  first  adopted. 
Keep  then  these  schools  of  thought  and  action  open,  as  you  keep  the  school- 
houses  of  the  child  open,  and  for  the  same  reason.  I  have  often  been 
struck  that  in  the  crowded  population  of  cities,  in  the  meetings  of  clubs 
and  societies,  men's  minds  become  very  expert,  and  men  become  prompt 
in  action.  The  agricultural  mind,  on  the  contrary,  is  slower.  The 
agricultural  mind  is  differently  trained.  He  who  follows  that  profession 
has  different  circumstances  around  him.  The  population  is  sparse. 
You  hear  already  that  there  is  a  total  loss  of  interest  in  "West  Eoxbui'y 
in  public  affairs. 

I  have  not  time  to  develop  the  idea,  but  I  am  sure  you  will  reo-ard 
with  all  solicitude  every  institution  and  every  influence  every  where  that 
shall  educate  the  mature  agricultural  mind,  and  enable  it  to  perform  its 
just  part  and  hold  its  just  place  in  the  deliberations  of  the  Legislature 
and  of  the  State.  You  keep  open  the  free  school  of  the  child.  For 
God's  sake  do  not  shut  the  free  school  of  the  man. 

I  put  it,  therefore,  to  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  my  friend  here,  and  I 
submit  also  to  this  Committee,  while  I  recognize  the  necessity  of  a  city, 
while  on  a  certain  area  and  rmder  certain  circumstances  the  city  govern- 
ment is  indispensable,  that  outside  of  that,  "  it  is  evil,  and  only  evil,  and 
that  continually."  I  do,  therefore,  submit  to  you  that  it  is  one  deserv- 
ing in  this  case  of  the  remedy  proposed. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  have  said  that  the  first  evil  we  complain  of,  and 
the  main  evil,  is,  that  we  do  not  live  as  we  could  wish  in  its  amplest  and 
most  perfect  and  best  sense  under  a  government  of  our  own.     And  I 


32 

should  bo  quite  willing  to  leave  it  there  instead  of  pursuing  their  present 
condition  into  the  practical  consequences  that  follow  it ;  that  is  to  say, 
instead  of  going  on  to  show  you  as  a  matter  of  fact  that  the  want  of  self- 
government  in  its  best  form  shows  that  the  mischief  which  might  be 
anticipated  has  really  occurred,  I  should  prefer  to  leave  it  on  the  general 
view  that  the  grant  of  self-government  is  best.  But  I  feel  bound  to 
bring  to  you  one  practical  evil  which  results  from  the  government 
under  which  we  live  ;  and  that  is  exactly  this  as  a  matter  of  evidence  in 
this  case,  that  whether  with  good  reason,  or  without  it,  the  fact  on  which 
I  have  been  insisting  that  upper  Eoxbury  is  connected  with  and  sub- 
ject to  lower  Roxbury,  under  the  form  of  a  city  government  —  that 
fact  does  in  reality  vastly  restrain  the  emigration  of  capitalists  and 
of  others  not  capitalists,  particularly,  but  persons  of  middling  for- 
tune ;  persons  who  do  their  business  in  the  city,  but  who  would 
esteem  it  as  one  of  their  greatest  privileges  if  they  could  go  out  at  night 
and  on  Sunday  and  pass  the  time  with  their  families  in  a  quiet  country 
town,  so  near  the  city  as  is  West  Roxbury.  The  practical  evil  is  that 
the  fact  that  we  are  thus  connected  with  lower  Roxbury,  and  are  gov- 
erned under  the  form  of  a  city  government,  does  operate  and  prevent 
capitalists,  great  and  small,  from  benefitting  us  and  benefitting  the  pub- 
lic, from  availing  themselves  of  the  transcendent,  but  to  some  extent 
unopened,  natural  beauty  and  wealth  with  which  all  that  part  of  Roxbury 
is  filled. 

I  have  now  for  a  moment  to  call  your  attention  to  that  great  practical 
evidence  ;  I  do  not  mean  to  inquire  whether  it  ought  to  have  influence. 
My  learned  friends  have  not  met  the  difficulty.  I  do  not  mean  to  inquire 
whether  it  is  not  just  as  well  for  people  to  move  into  Roxbury  as  to  Somer- 
ville,  or  Chelsea,  or  Cambridge,  or  Dedham.  I  do  not  mean  to  inquire 
whether  this  union  of  Roxbury,  upper  and  lower,  and  this  government 
by  a  city  government,  and  these  high  taxes,  ought  or  ought  not  to 
prejudice  and  prevent  people  from  coming  in.  I  do  not  mean  to  inquire 
whether  city  governments  work  any  practical  mischief  at  all ;  I  speak  as 
to  the  matter  of  fact.  And  I  submit  that  it  is  perfectly  certain  that 
such  is  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  this  vicinity,  opinion  that  we  can- 
not help  and  must  recognize,  such  is  the  force  and  operation  of  opinion 


33 


regarding  this  fonn  of  government,  that  it  is  practically  and  cruelly 
restraining  the  growth  and  prosperity  of  West  Roxbury.  It  will  be  for 
you  to  say  in  view  of  such  an  opinion  as  this,  no  matter  if  it  be  sound 
or  unsound,  whether  it  would  not  be  unjust  and  cruel  to  leave  us  for 
another  hour  under  the  subjection  that  we  desire  to  avoid. 

I  follow  my  learned  brother  upon  the  proof ;  and  without  folio  win-, 
him  into  detail,  let  me  inquire  what  are  the  general  results  of  the  whole 
matter  in  this  behalf?     Mr.  Chainnan,  we  have  called,  in  the  first  place 
and  It  IS  the  evidence  on  which  we  mainly  rely -I  made  it  eleven  wit- 
nesses, but  it  may  be  only  nine  -  from  nine  to  eleven  witnesses  we  have 
from  upper  Roxbury,  gentlemen  of  the  highest  respectability  and  intelli- 
gence, many  of  them  or  some  of  them  at  times  on  the  government  of  the 
city,  every  one  of  them  owning  an  amount  of  property  above  the  average 
every  one  of  them  interested  in  the  prosperity  of  this  place  and  in  tlie 
study  of  Its  decline,  every  one  of  them  persons  who  have  diligently 
ascertained  the  facts,  who  have  offered  lands  repeatedly  for  sale,  who 
have  conversed  with  persons  who  have  wished  to  buy  or  sell,  and  who 
know  what  their  opinions  are  and  what  are  the  objections  to  investment 
m  this  town.     I  submit  that  they  have  concurred  in  the  strongest  terms 
m  swearing  that  people  will  not  buy  and  will  not  move  upon  that  portion 
of  then-  territory;  and  that  the  real  and  operating  cause  is  the  city  .ov- 
ernment.  ° 

I  wiU  mention  the  names  of  the  witnesses  cursorily.  Mr  Whitney 
who  IS  a  surveyor  from  lower  Roxbury,  by  his  residence  not  incUned  to 
lavor  the  petition,  but  by  his  profession  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
^bject !  Mr.  Curtis,  a  large  farmer,  and  the  son  of  a  large  farmer ! 
Mr.  Wilhams,  a  native  of  Roxbuiy,  and  who  loves  Roxbmy  better  than 
a  new  comer  like  Mr.  Austin,  but  who  expends  S20,000  in  an  adjoining 
town  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  the  city!  Mr.  Brown,  for  sometime  an 
A Idern^an  of  the  city,  and  residing  for  a  part  of  the  time  in  Jamaica 
Plams  !  Mr.  Cass,  Mr.  Cowring,  Mr.  Bradford,  whose  thorough  exam- 
ination entitles  his  opinion  to  respect,  and  my  brother  Austin,  whose 
presence  and  language  have  sufficiently  entitled  him  to  your  considera. 
tion.     Every  one  of  these  concur  in  this  testimony. 


34 

Now,  gentlemen,  who  they  are  and  what  they  are,  you  know.  I  am 
sure  the  evidence  must  have  had  its  effect  upon  your  minds.  Time  will 
hardly  admit  of  a  thorough  examination  of  it,  and  I  beheve  it  is  need- 
less. For  a  sample  only,  and  for  the  purpose  of  refreshing  your  own 
memories  touching  certain  matters  of  fact  on  which  there  can  be  no  mis- 
take and  which  tell  this  whole  story,  I  will  ask  your  coUsent  to  read  the 
testimony  of  two  or  three  of  them. 

Mr.  Williams  declares  himself  to  be  a  native  of  Koxbury,  and  that 
his  affections  attach  him  to  it.  "  Circumstances  admonished  me  to  pro- 
vide for  my  own  family.  My  son  was  a  native,  and  for  years  a  resident 
of  Koxbury.  For  the  first  years  of  his  married  life  and  his  happiest 
ones  were  passed  there."  What  does  Mr.  "Williams  do  to  make  pro- 
visions for  his  sons?  He  goes  into  Brookline  and  declares  that  he 
bought  a  situation  there  for  $10,000,  for  eight  cents  a  foot,  and  gave  it 
to  one  of  his  sons.  He  purchased  another  for  $11,000,  for  eleven  cents 
a  foot,  and  apportioned  it  to  his  other  son.  Why  did  he  go  there  ? 
Was  it  nearer  to  Boston  ?  No !  Nearer  to  a  railroad  ?  No  !  Was  it 
cheaper  ?  No !  He  could  have  bought  as  eligible  a  situation  for  two 
cents  a  foot  in  West  Roxbury.  Why  did  he  go  to  Brookline  ?  Because 
it  governed  itself  and  had  a  town  government.  He  related  another  fact 
of  a  proposal  from  one  capitalist  to  sell  land  to  another.  The  situation 
was  satisfactory.  The  price  was  satisfactory.  Yet  he  refused,  for  the 
single  reason  that  it  was  situated  in  West  Roxbury,  which  was  united  to 
the  lower  town  by  a  city  government ;  and  was  also  governed  by  the 
lower  town,  a  thing  so  objectionable  to  the  agricultural  tastes  and  habits. 

Mr.  Brown  says  that  he  has  repeatedly  offered  lands  for  sale,  and  has 
been  met  again  and  again  with  this  objection  of  a  city  government.  He 
adds  still  further,  "  I  have  no  doubt  the  city  government  is  the  cause 
why  we  cannot  sell ;  I  know  persons  of  great  wealth  who  have  refused 
to  purchase  from  that  cause." 

Mr.  Cass  tells  you  that  he  has  had  a  piece  of  land  for  sale  for  five 
years.  Brokers  in  Boston  came  out  and  looked  at  it.  They  liked 
every  thing.  They  liked  the  schools.  They  were  pleased  with  the 
neighborhood.  They  admired  the  society.  But  when  they  come  to  the 
city  government,  it  kills  all. 


35 

Mr.  Bradford  has  examined  this  subject  thoroughly.  He  says:  "I 
have  urged  capitalists  to  come  and  settle  in  Roxbury ;  I  urged  in  partic- 
ular a  friend  of  mine,  a  millionaire,  who  must  leave  Brookline,  to  come." 
He  conversed  with  Mr.  Bradford  on  the  subject  of  the  advantages  of  the 
locality.  He  heard  the  advantages,  and  then  asked  the  objection.  '« I 
was  obliged,"  says  Mr.  Bradford,  "  to  mention  the  City  Government, 
and  it  was  fatal  instantly.     It  operated  upon  him  as  upon  others." 

I  have  read  but  a  small  part  of  the  testimony.  To  what  purpose  have 
I  read  this  e%ddenee  ?  It  is  to  show  you  by  positive  and  direct  proof,  not 
opinions,  not  opinions,  that  there  exists  out  of  Eoxbury  a  deep,  prevar 
lent,  and  settled  objection  to  this  connection,  under  this  form,  which,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  prevents  emigration  and  prevents  investment.  And  it 
proves  it  beyond  all  manner  of  controversy.  It  proves  facts,  not  opinions 
and  controversies.  It  presents  to  you  prices  asked,  refusal  resolved  on, 
and  the  reasons  given.  It  proves  a  public  opinion,  under  which  we 
have  found  it  utterly  impossible  to  develop  and  avail  om-selves  of  the 
resources  of  the  town.  As  much  does  this  public  opinion  affect  us  as  if 
the  town  were  b%hted  by  a  local  disease. 

How  do  the  remonstrants  meet  this?    Have  they  called  a  solitary 
broker  or  capitalist,  large  or  little,  who  swears  that  he  never  heard  such 
an  objection  t»  seUing  in  West  Roxbury?     Not  one  !     Here  and  there, 
there  was  a  remark  thrown  out  upon  the  subject.     I  think  we  had  one 
from  Mr.  Plummer,  who,  speaking  of  this  subject,  said,  that  he  should  be 
willing  to  pay  this  price  or  that  price.     But  it  turned  out  with  him  as  with 
Mr.  Cass'  customer  —  he  liked  every  thing  but  the  City  Crovernment;  and 
that  was  fatal.     So  that,  I  repeat  it,  here  exists  an  opinion  under  which 
we  are  practically  blighted  to^Jay,  as  much  so  as  if  we  lay  under  the 
blight  of  a  pestilential  disease.     I  say,  you  have  not  shown  a  particle  of 
evidence  that  this  opinion,  of  which  our  witnesses  speak,  is  not  held  by 
aU  the  capitalists  of  Boston.     Not  a  particle  of  proof!     Not  one  wit- 
ness!    To  our  eleven  witnesses  you  have  produced  not  one  witness  to 
say  that  he  never  heard  this  as  an  objection  to  settling  there. 
Mr.  Clark.     Yes;  five! 
Mr.  Choate.     If  my  learned  friend  has  discovered  three,  or  four,  or 


36 

even  five,  it  may  possibly  be  that  tliere  are  a  few  in  Brookline,  wbere  there 
is  a  large  rivalry.  Possibly  that  may  be  so.  But  the  position  that  I 
have  submitted  is  this,  that  we  have  called  nine  or  eleven  witnesses  af 
the  highest  respectability,  and  consummate  knowledge  of  this  question, 
proprietors  of  real  estate  in  Roxbury,  and  students  all  their  lives  of  the 
causes  of  this  decay,  who  have  thoroughly  explored  the  causes  why  those 
estates  will  not  sell,  and  who  tell  you  that  they  have  knowledge  enough 
to  know  that  there  exists  a  settled  and  general  opinion,  which  prevents 
investment  and  purchase  there. 

Now,  gentlemen,  what  do  the  remonstrants  undertake  to  say  against 
this  proof  ?  They  say  that  Roxbury  has  advanced  somewhat  as  a  whole. 
Who  doubts  that  ?  On  the  very  margin  of  rsuch  a  city  as  this,  without 
a  river  or  a  bridge  to  sever  it  from  Boston,  during  the  last  ten  years  of 
vast  gi-owth  to  Boston  itself,  lying  so  as  to  receive  the  fii'st  discharge  of 
the  first  overflow  of  this  great  central  prosperity,  it  must  flourish.  This 
fact  affords  not  the  slightest  ground  of  evidence  to  control  such  testimony 
as  I  have  presented.  Why,  the  worst  government  that  God  ever  suf- 
fered to  stand  upon  the  earth  could  not  have  retarded  the  growth  of  a 
city  in  the  position  of  Boxbury.  The  circumstances  in  which  God  has 
placed  it  would  do  more  to  forward  it  than  the  folly  of  man  could  re- 
tard it.  Do  they  mean  to  say  that  notwithstanding  this  unfavorable  state 
of  public  opinion,  that  upper  Roxbury  has  increased  in  population  ?  Do 
they  mean  to  say  that  it  has  improved,  just  as  all  around  Boston  has  im- 
proved, from  Chelsea  to  Dorchester.  I  exclude  Dorchester  under  its- 
peculiar  circumstances  ?  Do  they  mean  to  say  that  all  these  circum- 
stances have  enabled  West  Roxbury  to  keep  pace  in  any  degree  propor- 
tioned with  any  of  our  less  beautiful,  and  less  gifted  portions  of  the 
cities  around  us  ?  Not  a  word  of  it !  I  respectfully  submit  that  that  is 
the  only  questiop  we  have  to  consider ;  and  to  that  point  the  remon- 
strants have  showed  nothing  of  proof. 

I  do  not  deny  that  Roxbury  has  improved.  Some  extraordinary  evi- 
dence was  given.  They  said  that  its  valuation  was  increased  ;  and  they 
put  in  the  certificates  of  the  assessors,  by  which  they  over-prove  their  case, 
and  show  that  these  enhanced  values  ought  every  one  of  them  to  have 


37 

been  made  by  the  town  government,  before  the  charter  was  given.  They 
say  that  every  dollar  of  the  additional  amount  assessed  upon  every  one 
of  these  farms,  ought  to  have  been  thus  valued  when  they  took  this 
charter.  And  therefore  the  increase  of  the  city  valuation  over  that  of  the 
town  government  does  not  show  that  there  has  been  a  rise  of  property. 
I  submit,  that  we  put  this  matter  reaUy  beyond  a  particle  of  controversy. 
The  question  I  am  considering  is,  whether  a  certain  pernicious  public 
opinion,  according  to  the  testimony  of  these  nine  or  eleven  trustworthy 
witnesses,  does  not  pei^vade  our  due  proportion  of  native  residents  of 
the  metropolis,  to  which  proportion  we  should  be  entitled.  On  that 
point,  and  in  answer  to  my  learned  brother,  I  beg  leave  once  more  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  statement,  read  by  my  learned  brother  in  his  open- 
ing, from  the  Evening  Journal,  edited,  as  you  know,  by  a  gentleman 
who  has  just  retired  from  his  seat  in  the  Legislature,  as  you  are  aware, 
covered  with  the  thanks  of  his  constituents.  He  says  it  turns  out  that 
there  has  been  a  "  removal  of  some  20,000  of  our  native  [Bostonian] 
population  to  towns  in  the  vicinity."  That  20,000  would  be  a  harvest 
worth  getting  for  Roxbury.  He  adds  that  "It  is  also  worthy  of  note, 
that  very  few  who  have  left  Boston  for  a  residence  in  this  vicinity  appear 
to  have  gone  to  Roxbury." 

I  answer  the  counsel  by  the  testimony  of  the  representative  from  Rox- 
bury. I  should  be  glad  to  verify  this.  Perhaps  we  might  compare  it 
with  the  growth  of  neighboring  towns.  But  such  statistics  are  familiar 
to  you,  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  would  be  embodied  in  any  report  which 
shall  be  presented  by  the  Committee. 

Now,  gentlemen,  aU  this  emigration,  somewhat  hideous  and  painful  to 
the  native  citizens  of  Boston,  has  not  fallen  on  us  in  upper  Roxbury. 
Our  fleece  is  dry,  and  that  of  all  the  rest  is  saturated  with  the  refreshing 
dew.  What  is  the  cause  ?  It  is  the  practical  evil  of  which  we  have 
spoken.  According  to  the  testimony  of  these  witnesses,  all  of  whom 
have  paid  great  attention  to  the  subject  matter,  lawyers,  in  some  instan- 
ces, all  of  them  engaged  in  the  investigation  of  facts  throwing  light  on 
this  subject  —  in  their  opinion  the  cause  is  that  a  public  sentiment  has 
deterred  and  disheartened  numbers  in  consequence  of  a  connection 
3* 


38 

which  we  pray  you  to  sever,  and  a  government  which  we  beg  you  to 
change. 

What  is  their  answer  to  this  ?  They  govern,  they  say,  very  well. 
To  be  sure,  they  outnumber  us,  but  they  govern  us  well.  Now  I  am 
aware  that  it  is  no  better  than  mere  trifling,  to  make  such  a  reply.  The 
answer  we  make  to  that  is  :  Suppose  you  do  govern  us  very  well,  the 
great  fact  remains  that  there  exists  a  wide,  real,  and  settled  fear  that  you 
do  not  govern  well,  or  that  you  are  likely  to  govern  ill ;  just  as  likely  to 
govern  ill  as  well.  And,  therefore,  whatever  you  think  of  yourselves, 
people  will  not  come  in.  That  is  the  answer.  A  Canadian  might  as  well 
undertake  to  say  that  Canada  was  as  well  governed  as  the  United  States, 
and  that  lands  sell  for  as  much  there  as  here.  'That  maybe  the  case  in  a 
single  year.  But  there  are  some  facts  which  we  value  highly  in  connection 
with  our  own  government :  there  is  the  charm  of  liberty,  the  dread  of 
absolutism,  the  prestige  that  gathers  around  the  stars  and  the  stripes, 
which  go  to  make  up  a  public  opinion,  just  as  much  as  if  they  were 
connected  with  the  worst  legislation  in  the  world.  Public  opinion  is  the 
spring  of  growth,  the  arbiter  of  advancement.  There  can  be  no  stagna- 
tion where  public  opinion  is  healthy.  "  Opposmt  natura."  The 
nature  of  things  is  against  it. 

Where  there  is  a  thronged  and  busy  assemblage  of  persons,  a  city  gov- 
ernment is  indispensable.  Such  has  not  our  opposition.  Therefore 
I  hold  it  is  worthless  and  senseless  to  say,  when  we  point  out  the  neighbor- 
ing towns  gliding  upon  the  waters,  while  we  are  stranding  upon  the  beach, 
when  they  are  singing  songs  of  glory,  while  we  are  chanting  hymns  to  the 
moon — I  say  it  is  useless  to  assert,  in  such  a  case,  that  we  are  well 
governed.  The  difficulty  still  recurs.  The  difficulty  still  exists.  It 
may  be  a  prejudice  at  last,  but  men  do  not  undertake  to  "  gather  figs 
from  thorns,  or  grapes  from"  what  they  believe  to  be  "thistles."  I  do  not 
undertake  to  admit  that  they  do  govern  us  in  matter  of  fact.  I  cannot 
help  it,  whether  or  no ;  but  we  cannot  get  any  body  out  of  Roxbury  to 
believe  it.  We  might  swear  ourselves  as  mad  as  the  seven  wise  mas- 
ters, and  maintain  it  with  all  their  folly  that  the  government  is  good  ;  but 
we  cannot  induce  people  to  believe  it. 


r39 

Let  nie  call  your  attention  to  two  or  throe  pretty  striking  general 
facts,  and  I  shall  bring  my  remarks  to  a  close.  They  found  us  with  an 
expenditure  of  S42,000,  and  have  raised  it  to  S 83, 000.  They  raise  upon 
the  three  upper  wards,  a  tax  of  $22,000.  The  town  of  Brookline,  with 
its  population  of  2500  inhabitants,  pays  but  SI 2,000.  They  found  us 
with  a  debt  of  $24,000,  they  have  left  us  with  a  debt  of  $84,000. 

Mr.  Simmons.     That  is  a  mistake. 

Mr.  Choate.  Including  the  cemetery,  it  is  $84,000.  Without  the 
cemetery,  the  debt  is  $48,000.  You  find  us  with  the  salaries  of  our  offi- 
cers amounting  to  $3,300  and  leave  us  with  them  $5,293  a  year. 

Mr.  Clark.     That  is  not  correct. 

Mr.  Austin.     It  is  right. 

Mr.  Choate.  It  is  correct.  We  include  the  police,  which  you  have 
omitted.  You  found  us  with  a  primitive  power,  a  democratic  power,  and 
a  tax  of  $3,300  a  year,  and  leave  us  with  a  tax  of  $5,293  annually  for  the 
same  purpose.  I  will  not  say,  as  Rousseau  says  to  Voltaire,  "  Sir,  you 
have  corrupted  our  little  government,  and  I  hate  you."  But  you  have 
taken  the  happy  village  we  had,  and  pay  us,  not  in  marble,  as  Augustus 
did,  not  in  games  as  Augustus  did,  not  in  stalls  for  the  horses  of  the  city 
government,  as  my  brother  has  just  now  boasted,  but  in  exorbitant 
taxation. 

I  go  for  good  government,  by  itself,  and  I  think  a  town  government 
is  better  for  an  agricultural  district,  better  for  the  agriculturalist  as  a  man, 
and  fits  him  better  for  all  the  offices  in  the  Commonwealth.  Make  the 
change  we  ask  for,  and  Roxbury  takes  her  place  at  once  in  the  cucle  of 
prosperity  that  surrounds  her.  Capital  and  taste  will  add  the  beauties  of 
art  to  the  beauties  of  nature.  Capital  and  taste,  in  the  persons  of  those 
gentlemen  whom  the  influence  of  Mr.  Bradford  and  Mr.  Williams  invited 
in  vain,  will  then  come  to  beautify  and  adorn,  to  blend  the  achievements 
of  art  with  the  matchless  performances  of  nature. 

But  my  brother  thinks  we  shall  drive  out  the  middling  classes.  I  sub- 
mit to  you  that  over  and  above  the  millionaires,  the  humble  settlers  will 
be  directed  this  way  by  the  Branch  Railroad.  These  improvements,  by 
which  the  wise  policy  of  your  predecessors  has  enabled  this  community 


40 

to  avail  themselves  of  their  opportunities  for  taste  and  enjoyment,  ■will 
enable  men  who  work  all  day  in  town  to  unite  themselves  to  their  fami- 
lies at  night  and  treat  themselves  to  the  country  air.  What  that  is  worth, 
I  had  occasion,  before  a  former  committee,  to  endeavor  to  explain.  And 
I  have  been  so  much  struck  by  the  inadequacy  of  my  brother's  view  that 
we  come  here  only  to  invite  the  millionaire  among  us,  that  I  have  to  ask 
your  attention  to  the  fact  that  one  of  the  best  uses  of  this  town  will  be 
the  moral  influence  which  it  will  exert  upon  the  not  less  useful,  but 
larger  branch  of  society,  the  middling  class.  I  had  occasion,  in  advo- 
cating the  establishing  of  a  Branch  Railroad,  as  I  have  occasion  in 
argumg  in  favor  of  the  establishment  of  this  new  home,  to  deal  with 
the  moral  uses  of  railways,  and  of  legislation.'  I  beg  leave,  though  it  is 
ordinarily  bad  taste,  to  read  to  you  what  I  have  once  before  said  on  this 
subject. 

' '  But  there  is  an  element  of  consideration  here  highly  important,  of 
which  I  have  said  nothmg  yet.  I  hope  I  shall  excite  no  smile  when  I 
mention  it.  In  appreciating  the  influence  of  railroads,  we  are  apt  to 
look  too  much  to  their  industrial  effect,  how  much  they  add  to  our  time 
for  labor,  their  relief  to  our  tonnage,  burdens,  and  the  like,  and  to  stop 
there.  But  there  are  other  views  of  not  less  moment  to  humanity  and 
civilization  —  their  moral  uses,  and  I  beg  to  refer  to  the  Westminster 
Review  for  1844,  on  this  point. 

"  '  People  confined  to  towns  by  then- daily  avocations  placed  their  chil- 
dren to  school  in  the  country  air  —  when  they  possessed  pecuniary 
means  —  except  the  strange  anomalies  of  Westminster  school,  and  suni- 
lar  establishments.  The  poor  were  fain  to  be  content  with  the  day  school 
or  the  parish  school  — free  air  was  too  great  a  luxury  for  them.  The 
church,  the  chapel,  the  lecture  room,  the  concert  room,  the  theatre,  were 
all  reared  in  impure  places  and  their  uses  confined  to  the  inhabitants  of 
towns.  All  this  is  within  remedy  as  the  uses  of  the  railway 
BECOME  DEVELOPED.  Tlic  poor  man  can  have  his  accessible  country 
dwelling.  Cliurches  and  chapels  may  he  reared  in  beautiful  spots,  at 
the  confluence  of  lines  of  railway.  Temples,  worthy  of  man's  nature, 
where  man  may  meet  man  in  Christian  equality ;  where  all  benign  influ- 


41 

enees  may  be  at  work  attracting  but  not  compelling ;  where  architecture, 
music,  and  painting,  the  beautiful  in  art,  may  combine  with  the  beautiful 
in  nature.' "     So  far  the  Westminster  Review. 

We  added,  "  Sir,  the  rich  can  take  care  of  themselves  in  this  respect, 
and  erect  their  elegant  country  seats  in  Brookline,  and  wherever  they 
please,  and  retire  to  them  as  often  as  they  choose.     But  in  my  judgment 
no  use  of  railroads  is  more  worthy  to  fix  the  attention  of  the  Legislature, 
and  attract  its  favor,  than  this  of  enablino;  the  man  of  small  means  to 
spend  a  portion  of  his  time  in  the  country,  without  prejudice  to  his  means 
of  livelihood.     The  evils  of  living  wholly  confined  to  town  can  hardly 
be  appreciated  by  you,  gentlemen,  who  have  the  advantage  of  residing 
elsewhere  ;.  but  you  may  have  formed  some  idea  of  them  from  what  you 
have  seen  in  winter.     This  road  will  give  the  man  of  limited  income, 
whose  bread,  and  whose  family  living,  depend  upon  his  being  in  the 
crowded  haunts  of  trafiic  during  the  greater  part  of  the  day,  the  chance 
of  spending  his  evenings,  and  his  Sabbaths,  in  the  pure  and  sweet  air  of 
the  country,  in  the  midst  of  his  household  circle,  on  his  own  little  spot 
of  ground,  and  yet  enable  him  to  be  the  next  morning  at  his  desk  in  the 
counting  house,  or  place  in  the  workshop,  with  little  or  no  increase  of 
cost.     And  I  shall  provoke  no  wise  man's  sneer  when  I  say,  that  the 
many  clusters  of  quiet  cottages  and  beautiful  dwellmgs,  which  will  spring 
up  along  the  line  of  our  road,  affording  happy  homes  to  the  man  of 
business,  delightful  retreats  to  the  wearied  citizen,  are  of  themselves  no 
small  argument  in  favor  of  our  petition.     *     *     *     I  put  it,  sir,  as  one 
great  advantage,  that  we  traverse  this  region  of  country  to  win  it  from 
the  wild  flower,  the  wild  bird,  the  night  breezes  of  the  sea,  and  make  it 
the  pleasant  abode  of  hundreds  who  would  else  seldom  see  any  thing  but 
dusty  streets,  and  forests  of  masts  at  the  wharfs.     And  if  health  is  bet- 
ter than  sickness,  a  full  cheek  than  a  sunken  one,  a  bright,  clear  eye, 
than  one  dim  and  clouded,  a  happy  and  uncorrupt  heart  better  than  one 
tainted  and  debauched,  and  if  our  road  shall  be  the  means  of  bringing 
these  advantages  to  the  tired  and  driven  merchant,  book  keeper,  or  clerk, 
in  Kilby  or  Washington  street,  whose  wildest  dreams  have  never  yet  in- 
dulged in  the  vision  of  a  country  seat  of  his  own,  the  charter  will  not 
have  been  granted,  nor  the  road  built,  in  vain." 


J 


42 

Give  us,  gentlemen,  the  government  we  seek,  and  this  town  will  do 
for  Roxbury  what,  thus  far,  the  matchless  beauties  of  Roxbury  herself 
have  been  unable  to  do  for  herself  Gentlemen,  it  will  do  more.  It  will 
allay  excitement ;  it  will  re-open  fountains  of  feeling ;  it  will  enable 
men  to  know  who  they  are  and  what  they  are  ;  it  will  cover  you  with  the 
gratitude  of  thousands  unknown  to  you  by  sight  or  name,  with  no  vote  to 
honor  or  reward  you,  but  who  will  yet  thank  you,  and  the  government 
for  whom  you  act,  for  the  performance  of  a  great  beneficent  deed,  I  think 
too  long  delayed. 


^ 


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J 


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